Private Project

Laughing Through the Dark

What remains of a friendship when everything unspoken starts to rot beneath the surface?

Esther and Louise navigate the fragile threshold of adulthood, bound by a deep yet fragile bond. As ambition, frustration, and inner turmoil quietly take hold, their relationship begins to fracture, driven less by what is said than by what is left unsaid.

  • Alex Yu
    Director
    Fragments, Élégie, Everlasting
  • Alex Yu
    Writer
    Fragments, Élégie, Everlasting
  • Azzedine Wahbi
    Producer
    Le Dernier Acte
  • Emma Mougin
    Key Cast
    "Esther"
  • Monica Abi-Khalil
    Key Cast
    "Louise"
  • Steeven Barbin
    Production Manager
  • Ugo Delabarre
    First Assistant Director
  • Ugo Delabarre
    Casting Director
  • Élise Mathelier
    Script supervisor
  • Ben Ba
    Director of Photography
  • Gerardo Gonzalez Belmonte
    Camera Operator
  • Paul Pequignot
    Gaffer
  • Augustin Cicchelli
    Electricians
  • Delphine Lapous
    Electricians
  • Théo Berresi
    Electricians
  • Jordray Kalenga
    Unit Production Manager
  • Augustin Crétinon
    Sound Mixer
  • Nicolas Monny-Helwig
    Boom operator
  • Mariana Diaz Alba
    Production Designer
  • Mariana Diaz Alba
    Props Master
  • Salomé Leroy
    Makeup Artist
  • Badreddine Harzli
    Film Editor
  • Alex Yu
    Film Editor
  • Azzedine Wahbi
    Colorist
  • Augustin Crétinon
    Sound Editor
  • Augustin Crétinon
    Sound Mixing
  • Steeve Fidol
    Sound Mixing
  • Maxime Jean
    Composer
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    On peut rire dans le noir
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    11 minutes 25 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 1, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    20,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    France
  • Country of Filming:
    France
  • Language:
    French
  • Shooting Format:
    RED
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:40
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Alex Yu

Alex Yu develops an intimate, contemporary cinema that explores the fractures of youth, inner wandering, and the inability to communicate in a world saturated with noise. His films portray solitary characters confronted with doubt. His writing favors silence, everyday rituals and interiority, through pared-down formal devices combining voice-over, recurring visual and sound motifs, and subtle shifts into the uncanny. The act of creation often becomes a narrative stake.

In 2025, he was selected for the Cinécubateur residency to develop a short fiction film based on his Hmong culture.

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Director Statement

Laughing Through the Dark was born from a personal need to explore the silences we carry and the emotions we struggle to share, even with those closest to us. I was interested in the quiet moments, where nothing seems to happen, yet everything slowly begins to fracture.

Through Esther and Louise, I wanted to portray depression, loneliness and the fragile nature of friendship. Their relationship does not collapse through dramatic conflict, but through what remains unspoken. The film is shaped by absence.

For me, this film is less about despair than about vulnerability and the human need to be seen.