Raphaël Quenard enters the year 2025 with rare intensity. He publishes Clamser à Tataouine, a dark debut novel, and co-directs I Love Peru, a hybrid film blending introspection and absurdity. The actor turned writer and then director embodies a generation of polymorphic artists, eager for creation and free from formats.
His novel, published by Flammarion, unfolds the voice of a serial killer obsessed with social inequalities. He hunts his victims randomly across neighborhoods, in a mad gesture tinged with sociological melancholy. This work, though violent, aims to be a mirror held up to the reader. According to Quenard, "fiction should not be expected to repair, but to reveal." This rejection of didacticism anchors him in a libertarian literary tradition, akin to Louis-Ferdinand Céline or Virginie Despentes.
From Chemistry to Words: An Explosive Trajectory
Born in 1991 in Échirolles, a working-class suburb of Grenoble, Raphaël Quenard grew up between books and children’s games. Born to an engineer and an insurance employee, he initially chose scientific excellence. However, he later explored other horizons. He joined the École nationale supérieure de chimie de Paris, then went for an internship at Imperial College London. There, an intimate dissonance pushed him towards theater.
Back in Paris, he trained with Jean-Laurent Cochet, a master of diction and craftsman of words. He discovered a new relationship with the world, based on raw emotion. Moreover, he adopted a sidelong glance. Finally, he used language as a tool of rebellion. Quickly, he moved on to short films, forging a magnetic presence, recognizable among all.
An Identifiable Style, a Rare Voice
In Chien de la casse (2023), he plays a down-and-out with a big heart, shaken by contained anger. In Yannick, by Quentin Dupieux, he imposes a singular density, offbeat but poignant. These performances earned him two nominations at the César 2024, including the male revelation award which he won.
Since then, his name has appeared on posters for various films like Je verrai toujours vos visages. Moreover, he features in L’amour ouf. Finally, he is present in Les trois fantastiques. He blends comedy, drama, political irony, and raw humanity. His phrasing, filled with mental images, sometimes confounds but often captivates. He defines it as an "overflow of modesty that reverses into logorrhea."
I Love Peru: Intimate Farce and Existential Vertigo
In 2025, he co-writes and co-directs I Love Peru with Hugo David. The film follows an actor lacking love, roles, and bearings. He dreams he is a condor, a creature perched on the Andean heights, holding silent wisdom. This journey, between hallucination and poetry, was presented at the Cannes Film Festival 2025 in the Un Certain Regard selection. It received a discreet but sincere ovation.
The film confounds with its fragmentary construction. Some scenes verge on nonsense, others strike with their raw beauty. It sometimes evokes Holy Motors by Leos Carax, sometimes The Holy Mountain by Jodorowsky. But Quenard leaves his mark: a mix of the trivial and the metaphysical, tears and grotesque.
A Carnal Relationship with Culture and Language
Recently invited to La Grande Librairie, Quenard shared his complex about unread classics. He sees writing as a way to reconcile knowledge and instinct. Clamser à Tataouine is not just a crime fiction. It is a veiled essay on systemic violence, male solitude, and social injunctions. The author dares discomfort, while letting flashes of tenderness filter through.
His inspiration comes from the pavement, accents, and counter details. He claims a carnal realism, in the manner of a Kassovitz or a Zadig & Voltaire with a dusty aftertaste. For him, language is both a refuge and a weapon. He seeks to say what is unsaid, to name what rubs, what sticks.
Quenard, Emblem of a Disenfranchised and Flamboyant Generation
Beyond his singular trajectory, Raphaël Quenard embodies a contemporary tension. That of an educated but uncertain generation, ultra-sensitive and in search of meaning. He does not claim to be a spokesperson. But his voice carries, precisely because it doubts, diverges, sometimes contradicts itself.
He inspires young artists, often from modest backgrounds, who see in him a possible model: free, curious, uninhibited. He is part of a lineage of actor-authors, alongside Vincent Macaigne, Rabah Naït Oufella, or Adèle Haenel, all driven by a desire for rupture and experimentation.
An Open Future, Between Popular Roots and Poetic Audacity
With Clamser à Tataouine and I Love Peru, Raphaël Quenard asserts a style, a universe, a vision. He navigates between forms, media, intensities. He has no career plan but an energy, almost vital, to invent.
We now await what comes next. A play? A second novel? An experimental series? Quenard’s future unfolds without a key to understanding. And it is precisely this vertigo that makes him so precious in a sometimes stagnant cultural landscape.