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In I Love Peru, French actor and filmmaker Raphaël Quenard turns the camera on himself in a bold hybrid of documentary and fiction. Blending raw humor, surreal adventure, and disarming vulnerability, this film is as much an ego trip as it is an honest self-portrait.
Balancing fiction and reality, I Love Peru, the feature debut co-directed by Raphaël Quenard and Hugo David, dives with humor and excess into the rise of an improbable leading man. From improvised shoots in hotel rooms to surreal sequences in Peru, the film reveals a character both grotesque and fragile.
Premiering at the most recent Cannes Film Festival, the documentary I Love Peru delivers an unconventional cinematic experience. Co-directed by Quenard and David, it deliberately blurs the line between fiction and reality, portraying the 34-year-old actor as at once vulgar and unmistakably human.
The narrative follows a quirky actor—Raphaël Quenard himself—propelled into a frantic chase for success, leaving loved ones behind along the way. His career, ego, and contradictions are filmed without mercy by David, his longtime creative partner. The pair first met on the set of Chien de la casse. From hotel rooms to kebab shop rooftops and awkward moments of intimacy, this docu-fiction sketches a character both hilarious and menacing, oscillating between philosophical musings and theatrical excess.
In this self-aware parody, Raphaël Quenard strips himself bare with fearless candor: showing humanity in all its vulgarity, without inhibition, leaning into overblown egocentrism and even outright obnoxiousness. Cameos from collaborators such as François Civil and Jean-Pascal Zadi heighten the intentionally over-the-top portrait, while the Peru sequences—centered on the search for a mythical condor—add an absurd yet striking layer to his self-exploration. Beneath the biting humor, the film offers moments of raw vulnerability, reminding viewers that behind the ego trip lies an artist of acute sensitivity.
I Love Peru builds on the duo’s earlier work L’Acteur, a brilliant mockumentary from 2024, but pushes self-deprecation to its limits. Absurdity and emotion coexist, while the intrusion of reality into fiction probes not only Quenard’s public persona but also the actor–audience relationship. As David says in voice-over: “After playing so many characters, he became one. An actor without an audience, he talks to himself. I had become his audience.”
Spotlight on Raphaël Quenard
Quenard’s rise comes from a rare mix of audacity and authenticity. His offbeat speech patterns, distinctive accent, quirky observations, rich vocabulary, and often dark humor create an instantly recognizable universe. His media success—strengthened by the simultaneous promotion of his book Clamser à Tataouine and multiple film projects—stems from his ability to turn his own personality into artistic material, while keeping a blunt connection with his audience. Quenard is one of those rare figures who dare, without self-censorship, to merge provocation with tenderness, vulnerability with creativity, offering viewers an experience both disorienting and sincere.
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