Private Project

As they pass

Cinemascope 5.1 with english and french subtitles
It’s 8 p.m. Just as she’s about to leave her apartment, Lise, a freelance graphic designer, receives a phone call from her father. Nothing extraordinary so far... except that he has been dead for two years. He calls to invite her to his birthday. He talks as if nothing happened.
Alone in her apartment, she falters. An absurd conversation begins : funny, tender, and deeply out of sync. Very intrusive, Lise’s father once again wants to keep control and pull his daughter back into his world. Lise struggles not to become her “daddy’s little girl” again.
As the dialogue unfolds, the boundaries between the living and the dead start to blur.

  • Patrice Masini
    Director
  • Natacha Drion
    Writer
  • Patrice Masini
    Writer
  • Patrice Masini
    Producer
    Play the game
  • PIERRE RICHARD
    Key Cast
    Actor
  • NATACHA DRION
    Key Cast
    Actress
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Quand ils passent
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    11 minutes 50 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 2, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    35,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    France
  • Country of Filming:
    France
  • Language:
    French
  • Shooting Format:
    ARRI ALEXA Mini Anamorphic
  • Aspect Ratio:
    Cinemascope
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Cinema le Louxor
    Paris
    France
    November 20, 2025
    Cinema le Louxor
  • Nova cinéma
    Bruxelles
    Belgium
    December 18, 2025
    Nova cinéma
Distribution Information
  • Homemade Productions
    Distributor
    Country: France
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Patrice Masini

Patrice Masini began his career at Canal+ in the late 1990s, before writing and directing numerous documentaries for France Télévisions, TF1 and Canal+. His areas of expertise include history, society, aviation, art, and music. He created and directed the TV magazines Carnets de vol and Histoire de se balader for France 3.

He focuses on telling unique and personal stories, often spotlighting everyday heroes. His documentaries on World War II (Ligne de démarcation, Évasions à travers les Pyrénées) gave a voice to unknown individuals whose small stories contributed to the larger historical narrative. He also explores major societal issues in films about infidelity, local French markets, and the role of suburban communities in collective living.

An art collector with a passion for painting and sculpture, Patrice became interested early on in blockchain and crypto-art, directing the first French documentary on NFTs. In parallel, he has developed and directed films and series for brands, institutions, and ministries including a series on rare childhood diseases for the Lysogene lab, comedies for Iveco, three seasons of a series on apprenticeships for the Ministry of Labor, and films for CIC, LVMH, Nespresso, E.Leclerc, Optic 2000, and the French Army.

His work has received multiple awards, including the 2024 TOP/COM Gold Grand Prize for Sans filtres, a documentary series highlighting construction and public works professionals.

As a visual storyteller, Patrice is deeply involved in the artistic direction of his projects from photography and graphic design to music and overall aesthetic.

In 2025, he directed his first fiction short film, Quand ils passent (“When They Pass”), co-written with Natacha Drion. With humor and mystery, the film explores our personal relationship with death, memory, and the invisible threads that connect us to those we've lost. The legendary French actor Pierre Richard plays a father… who calls his daughter two years after his death. A poetic and uncanny tale, mixing comedy and the supernatural, that marks a new direction in Patrice’s storytelling blending reality and imagination. A poetic supernatural drama with a touch of dark humor.

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Director Statement

When They Pass is a story born from a question that has haunted many of us: What remains of those we’ve lost and what if they could still speak to us? The film blends comedy and the supernatural without fully embracing either genre, aiming instead for a suspended emotional space between absurdity and tenderness.

I wanted to explore the ambiguity of grief not as a resolved process, but as an ongoing dialogue with the dead. A phone call that shouldn't happen becomes the metaphor of what lingers: the voices, the memories, the unresolved tensions.

Stylistically, I embraced contrast: hyper-realistic details in the set design, poetic abstraction in slow-motion shots, and invisible special effects that serve the story without calling attention to themselves. The sound design sometimes slowed down, sometimes strangely intimate creates a space where time stretches and emotional logic prevails.

Pierre Richard, with his unique blend of mischief and gravitas, brings to life a father who is as endearing as he is manipulative. Facing him, Natacha Drion gives Lise the quiet power of someone trying to move forward while being pulled back by love, guilt, and memory.

This film is personal. But I believe it speaks to a universal truth: sometimes, the dead don’t haunt us — we haunt ourselves through them.