Description
Everyone Calls Me Mike is a taut French nautical thriller that turns an idyllic voyage into an increasingly unsettling test of trust and survival. Jean, Isabelle and Isabelle's young son Damien are sailing around the world aboard their blue schooner when engine trouble forces them to stop in Djibouti. There they meet Mike, a resourceful taxi driver who helps locate a difficult-to-find replacement part. When Mike asks to accompany them on the next stage of their journey, Jean reluctantly agrees, reasoning that another capable pair of hands could prove valuable while crossing the dangerous Gulf of Aden.
Several days after setting sail for the Seychelles, the travelers encounter a Somali fishing vessel whose crew suddenly reveals itself to be a band of pirates. The schooner is seized and its occupants taken hostage, until Mike unexpectedly produces a gun and kills the pirates' leader. His intervention saves the family from immediate danger, but also raises a far more disturbing question: who exactly have they invited aboard? With their radio destroyed and land still days away, Jean and Isabelle are now isolated at sea with an armed stranger whose past and motives remain unknown.
The feature directorial debut of writer-director Guillaume Bonnier, Everyone Calls Me Mike uses the physical confinement of a sailing vessel and the vast emptiness surrounding it to steadily tighten its psychological tension. Filmed aboard an actual sailing yacht in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the production places its characters within the environment at the center of the story. Pierre Lottin and Daphné Patakia lead the cast in a thriller where shifting power dynamics and suspicion become as threatening as the dangers beyond the boat.
Moving from the promise of a globe-spanning adventure into an atmosphere of paranoia and uncertainty, Everyone Calls Me Mike combines the isolation of a survival thriller with the intimate psychological conflict of films such as Dead Calm and Knife in the Water. Maroussia Dubreuil of Marie Claire called the film "Masterful," noting how it transforms a romantic cruise into an intense journey shaped by geopolitical realities.
Media
Cast & Crew
Actors:
- Pierre Lottin as Jean
- Daphné Patakia as Isabelle
- Mike as Abdirisak Mohamed
Director: Guillaume Bonnier
Producer: Cédric Walter
Additional Details
Label: IndiePix Films
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Language: French
Run Time: 96 mins
Region: 0
Release Date: 09/22/26
UPC: 845637065004