Katharina Rivilis’ debut, “I’ll Be Gone in June,” follows German-Russian teenager Franny as she settles in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 2001, while the film’s real-time shock of 9/11 echoes through classrooms, parties, and a camcorder-style intimacy—ending with a
When the world is still absorbing the images of Sept.. 11. 2001. Katharina Rivilis places her characters in the awkward. tender space of adolescence—where identity questions don’t wait for anyone to catch up.. In her sure knockout debut. “I’ll Be Gone in June. ” two lives collide with that immense rupture. even as the story itself moves like memory trying to keep pace.
The film has clear ties to the broader cultural moment it’s drawn from.. Rivilis’ project was boarded by Road Movies. the Berlin-based production company attached to Wim Wenders. who was also residing in the U.S.. during Sept.. 11 and later made “Land of Plenty” (2004), a film about its aftermath.. Rivilis. shot for over 50 days. uses that layered proximity to the event to build something smaller—and closer to the body.
At the center is Franny, played by Naomi Cosma in a breakout leading role.. Franny is described as a German-Russian filmmaker’s self-insert. and the character is chasing the American Dream as an exchange student.. Her path begins in 2001 in Las Cruces. New Mexico—before she sets out toward either New York or California to embrace “all the incredible things it has to offer.” But none of that materializes as Franny (and the director’s teenage self) hoped. and her future turns out botched.. Until June, she has to grapple with the new reality around her—then she moves back to Germany for good.
Even though Las Cruces feels removed from the big city. Rivilis treats the desert town as fertile ground for a semi-autobiographical story where young characters don’t rush to abandon youth.. The film puts Franny in the middle of conversations about who she is as a world rears from a massive tragedy.. The trauma is not lost on her. especially after living and struggling in Berlin Wall-era Germany—only now she’s an outlander.. The friction lands in moments like her fellow teens teasingly taking swipes at her identity. including remarks such as “Nazi girl.”
Las Cruces isn’t exactly distraction-free either.. Franny moves from one military host family to another. drifts through her “alien” life. and fills days with awkward classes. off-campus parties. and time spent by the pool.. She’s frequently with Sam (Bianca Dumais) and exchange student Ida (Rebecca Schulz, returning from 2015’s “Ariana Forever!”).. The sisterhood around her matters: it makes the searching less lonely, even as her position never fully stabilizes.
The movie’s structure is built from quick. shifting encounters. described as being “structured à la ‘The Little Prince.’” Rivilis’ Un Certain Regard beauty unfolds in brief scenes that reveal more about Franny’s world—and how people change inside it.. At one party, Franny meets Elliott (David Flores), a melancholic artist and band vocalist.. Their bond is a kind of turning point, snapping into focus in the film’s second half.. In 2001. the film frames them as two adrift souls trying to make sense of the new world. finding tenderness where they can.
That tenderness becomes part of a broader. uneasy pattern: outsider life isn’t just personal hardship. it’s also a lens on how the political bleeds inward.. Rivilis uses the connection between Franny and Elliott to deliver “a trenchant meditation on the turmoil of living as outsiders. ” in a setting where everyone is suddenly more skeptical of what’s unfamiliar—ranging from heightened border patrol post-9/11 to Franny being asked by her homestay family not to speak German around their foster child.
The relationship between those facts runs straight through the film’s timeline: Franny is chasing a new life in 2001. 9/11 has already reshaped the world around her. and the film repeatedly shows that same impact arriving in intimate places—like family rules about language and classmates debating how to respond.
As the story moves, Rivilis leans into an on-the-ground feeling of immediacy.. Franny shoots her everyday affairs on a camcorder. and the lens often stays close on faces. giving the audience a less mediated view.. That choice echoes the way TV newsreel footage of 9/11 punctuates the film. lending remembered past a “raw texture” and a sense of exigency.. Together, the film evokes how personal memory can “accentuate or warp a collective experience.”
There’s another visual tension at work, too.. The film’s digital images—courtesy of the Alexa 35—make Las Cruces a lyrical. longing landscape. shaped in “deep blues” and soft yet stifling oranges.. The setting doesn’t just sit in the background: Rivilis and cinematographer Giulia Schelhas activate it “as a character on its own. ” holding up a mirror to Franny as she grows less hostile and distant. becoming more romantic as the film proceeds.
Rivilis also flirts with the form itself.. A female duo in the film “invokes some breaking of the fourth wall for good measure. ” and the story. at points. entertains conspiratorial views regarding 9/11—something the film uses “perhaps to dispel the idea that this work is solely an exercise in verisimilitude.”
Music becomes one more way the film plays with time.. Its soundtrack mixes anachronistic and modern sounds: blues and rock of the ’50s featuring Nina Simone’s “Wild Is the Wind. ” punk-grunge and alternative from today including “a reinterpretation of PJ Harvey’s cover of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s ‘Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife. ’” and classic Spanish-language music with Chavela Vargas’ “La Llorona.” The film trades between pensive tone and “livewire spirit. ” leaning into pop-culture nostalgia without getting swallowed by it.
Cosma anchors all of it with an emotional sharpness the film makes central.. The performance is described as emotionally perceptive. “wistfully embodying the friction” of Franny’s refusal to wallow in self-surrender as she tries to figure out what comes next.. The film also avoids infantilizing Franny or its young characters.
Authenticity plays a role in how the teens speak and move.. The review points to improvisation from young non-actors Rivilis spotted in New Mexico.. In a classroom scene. the teenagers are pressed by their teacher about the “right” response to 9/11. and the students produce vastly different answers that sound like they’re forming in the moment rather than rehearsed.. In those debates. some students promote “colonialist rhetoric” and argue about conquering the world and exacting revenge—paralleling what’s been seen in the case of Afghanistan and what is still being seen “play out in the current situation in Iran.”
One student—described as sharing the same class as his twin brother—answers pointedly with a long. cautious skepticism: “I don’t know what we should be doing.. It could be a lost cause.. It could be the right move.. It could be another Vietnam.. It could be a very short conflict.. I think we should wait some more time and question ourselves. and see what the right plan is and maybe scheme a little more. but going head first into this does not seem like the right decision.”
The conversations don’t stay confined to school.. “I’ll Be Gone in June” draws viewers into debates that extend outside of the classroom. reinforcing that the characters aren’t passive—young people. including those born after 9/11 and in the face of historic cruelties. “actually have something to contribute.” The film suggests that openness is where “sober. empathetic answers” can arrive amid the world’s present horrors. while also stressing “it doesn’t have to bend over backwards to make its point.”
By the time the story reaches its ending, the endgame is already known from the title, but the review insists it still remains mesmerizing—and that Rivilis offers Franny the “grace she deserves.” The debut earns a Grade: A-.
“I’ll Be Gone in June” premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
I’ll Be Gone in June Katharina Rivilis Naomi Cosma Franny Elliott Road Movies Wim Wenders Cannes 2026 Las Cruces 9/11 Un Certain Regard camcorder Alexa 35