Lie with Me

Stéphane Belcourt, a celebrated novelist, returns to his hometown of Cognac, France, for the first time in 35 years. Serving as the guest of honor for a local distillery’s bicentenary celebration, he expects a routine professional engagement. Instead, he encounters Lucas Andrieu, a young distillery employee whose presence forces Stéphane to confront a past he has spent decades processing through his fiction. Lucas is the son of Thomas Andrieu, Stéphane’s high school classmate and his first, intense love. Their teenage romance was a secret kept within the confines of a bedroom, abruptly severed when Thomas left for Spain without explanation. As Stéphane navigates his return to the town that shaped his formative years, he finds himself drawn into a tense, evolving relationship with Lucas. The younger man, raised by a distant and unhappy father, is desperate to understand the man he never truly knew. As the two men peel back the layers of Thomas’s life, they uncover long-buried secrets, including a hidden letter and a photograph from their youth. *Lie with Me* is a poignant exploration of shame, the psychological toll of a closeted life, and the enduring power of storytelling. Caught between the ghosts of his own romantic ruins and a son’s search for truth, Stéphane must decide if he can finally speak the words he has held back for over three decades.