On a hot summer day by a small lake, Mia asks Hugo, 15 years old and yet already blasé, to tell her about his love story with Chaïnes. Despite his reluctance, memories come to the surface: evenings spent at the edge of the lake trying to seduce her, or the fear felt when declaring his love.

Cinematographer of films such as Damian Manivel’s Le Parc, Isabel Pagliai boasts a gifted eye for natural light. In Tendre, bodies and voices find their way through the landscape, while the timelessness of childhood and the mystery of adolescence are beguilingly captured in all their raw splendor.