Both features will form part of Paris-based mk2 films’ line-up at Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris event this week.
mk2 films, the sales outfit behind Anatomy Of A Fall and How To Have Sex, has acquired Jonathan Millet’s thriller Ghost Trail and Laetitia Dosch’s high-concept comedy Who Let the Dog Bite? ahead of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema that opens tomorrow in Paris.
Inspired by real-life events, Ghost Trail is about a Syrian man pursuing some of the people who perpetrated horrors in the name of the regime during the civil war. His mission takes him to France...
mk2 films, the sales outfit behind Anatomy Of A Fall and How To Have Sex, has acquired Jonathan Millet’s thriller Ghost Trail and Laetitia Dosch’s high-concept comedy Who Let the Dog Bite? ahead of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema that opens tomorrow in Paris.
Inspired by real-life events, Ghost Trail is about a Syrian man pursuing some of the people who perpetrated horrors in the name of the regime during the civil war. His mission takes him to France...
- 1/15/2024
- by Rebecca Leffler
- ScreenDaily
French director Alain Ughetto’s explores grandparents’s journey as Italian immigrants settling in France at the turn of the 20th-Century.
Paris-based company Indie Sales has signed world sales rights for French filmmaker Alain Ughetto’s animated feature No Dogs Or Italians Allowed ahead of its world premiere in competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 13-18).
The stop-motion animation explores the real-life story of Ughetto’s grandparents who left their homeland in the Piedmont region of Italy to settle in France at the turn of 20th century, changing the destiny of his family forever.
French actress Ariane Ascaride...
Paris-based company Indie Sales has signed world sales rights for French filmmaker Alain Ughetto’s animated feature No Dogs Or Italians Allowed ahead of its world premiere in competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 13-18).
The stop-motion animation explores the real-life story of Ughetto’s grandparents who left their homeland in the Piedmont region of Italy to settle in France at the turn of 20th century, changing the destiny of his family forever.
French actress Ariane Ascaride...
- 5/5/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Following up his love-it-or-hate-it Climax, director Gaspar Noé secretly shot a new film this past spring and it’s among the additions to the Cannes Film Festival lineup, which also includes new work by Ari Folman, a Bill Murray concert film, Noémie Merlant’s directorial debut, and more.
As for the Enter the Void director’s latest, he shot Vortex over twenty days between mid-March and April 2021, with a cast including Dario Argento, Françoise Lebrun, and Alex Lutz, as well as a budget of 3.3 million euros, more than his last two features. Check out a roughly-translated synopsis below via his Le Temps de Trout Tout:
Gaspar Noé, son of the Argentinian painter Luis Felipe Noé, finished his film at the last minute because he shot it quickly and late. A quasi-documentary film about the last days of a loving old couple suffering from senility, played by Françoise Lebrun and Dario Argento.
As for the Enter the Void director’s latest, he shot Vortex over twenty days between mid-March and April 2021, with a cast including Dario Argento, Françoise Lebrun, and Alex Lutz, as well as a budget of 3.3 million euros, more than his last two features. Check out a roughly-translated synopsis below via his Le Temps de Trout Tout:
Gaspar Noé, son of the Argentinian painter Luis Felipe Noé, finished his film at the last minute because he shot it quickly and late. A quasi-documentary film about the last days of a loving old couple suffering from senility, played by Françoise Lebrun and Dario Argento.
- 6/10/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Maxime Roy, an accomplished actor and filmmaker involved in five productions over the past two years, whose short “Beautiful Loser” was nominated for a César, is participating in this year’s MyFrenchFilmFestival with his latest short “Sole Mio,” finishing its worldwide festival lifecycle having previously played at Palm Springs in the U.S., Huesca in Spain and Bogoshorts in Colombia.
“Sole Mio” turns on Daniel, a young man coping as best he can with his frustrated mother, desperate to hear news from her ex-husband and Daniel’s father. Dad finally shows up, with little warning, at Daniel’s place the day before a sex change operation so she can physically become Lisa, the woman she’s identified as for some time. After an evening experiencing the gamut of emotions associated with distant father drama, Daniel must eventually put his foot down and force his father to share a hard truth with his family.
“Sole Mio” turns on Daniel, a young man coping as best he can with his frustrated mother, desperate to hear news from her ex-husband and Daniel’s father. Dad finally shows up, with little warning, at Daniel’s place the day before a sex change operation so she can physically become Lisa, the woman she’s identified as for some time. After an evening experiencing the gamut of emotions associated with distant father drama, Daniel must eventually put his foot down and force his father to share a hard truth with his family.
- 1/15/2021
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
HBO Max has acquired StudioCanal’s psychological thriller series Possessions.
It will become available on the WarnerMedia streaming service in December as an international original.
The six-episode Possessions stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Reda Kateb (Django), Dominique Valadié, Ariane Ascaride, Judith Chemla, Noa Koler, Aloïse Sauvage, Tzahi Grad Roy Nik and Tchéky Karyo.
The show focuses on Natalie, a young French expatriate in Israel who is charged with the murder of her husband on their wedding night. Karim, a French diplomat, slowly falls for Natalie, but cannot figure her out. “Obsessed with this case, Karim will dive into Natalie and her family’s mysterious past,”...
It will become available on the WarnerMedia streaming service in December as an international original.
The six-episode Possessions stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Reda Kateb (Django), Dominique Valadié, Ariane Ascaride, Judith Chemla, Noa Koler, Aloïse Sauvage, Tzahi Grad Roy Nik and Tchéky Karyo.
The show focuses on Natalie, a young French expatriate in Israel who is charged with the murder of her husband on their wedding night. Karim, a French diplomat, slowly falls for Natalie, but cannot figure her out. “Obsessed with this case, Karim will dive into Natalie and her family’s mysterious past,”...
- 10/14/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
HBO Max has acquired StudioCanal’s psychological thriller series Possessions.
It will become available on the WarnerMedia streaming service in December as an international original.
The six-episode Possessions stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Reda Kateb (Django), Dominique Valadié, Ariane Ascaride, Judith Chemla, Noa Koler, Aloïse Sauvage, Tzahi Grad Roy Nik and Tchéky Karyo.
The show focuses on Natalie, a young French expatriate in Israel who is charged with the murder of her husband on their wedding night. Karim, a French diplomat, slowly falls for Natalie, but cannot figure her out. “Obsessed with this case, Karim will dive into Natalie and her family’s mysterious past,”...
It will become available on the WarnerMedia streaming service in December as an international original.
The six-episode Possessions stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Reda Kateb (Django), Dominique Valadié, Ariane Ascaride, Judith Chemla, Noa Koler, Aloïse Sauvage, Tzahi Grad Roy Nik and Tchéky Karyo.
The show focuses on Natalie, a young French expatriate in Israel who is charged with the murder of her husband on their wedding night. Karim, a French diplomat, slowly falls for Natalie, but cannot figure her out. “Obsessed with this case, Karim will dive into Natalie and her family’s mysterious past,”...
- 10/14/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
HBO Max, the streaming-video hub of WarnerMedia, has acquired anticipated Studiocanal title “Possessions,” a psychological thriller series created by Shachar Magen (“Sirens”) and directed by BAFTA-nominated Thomas Vincent (“Bodyguard”).
As an international Max Original, the series will be made available on the U.S. streaming platform in December.
Commissioned for Canal Plus’s Creation Original and Israel’s Yes TV, the series was shot in Israel in French, Hebrew and English. The show was produced by Caroline Benjo, Barbara Letellier, Simon Arnal and Carole Scotta from the leading Paris-based production company Haut et Court TV, whose credits include “No Man’s Land” and “The Returned.” Eilon Ratzkovsky, Osnat Nishri and Keren Misgav Ristvedt from Israel’s Quiddity (“Sirens”) co-produced the series.
“The demand for non-English language content continues to grow throughout the world and I am delighted that this exceptional drama will be available for a wide, global audience via HBO Max...
As an international Max Original, the series will be made available on the U.S. streaming platform in December.
Commissioned for Canal Plus’s Creation Original and Israel’s Yes TV, the series was shot in Israel in French, Hebrew and English. The show was produced by Caroline Benjo, Barbara Letellier, Simon Arnal and Carole Scotta from the leading Paris-based production company Haut et Court TV, whose credits include “No Man’s Land” and “The Returned.” Eilon Ratzkovsky, Osnat Nishri and Keren Misgav Ristvedt from Israel’s Quiddity (“Sirens”) co-produced the series.
“The demand for non-English language content continues to grow throughout the world and I am delighted that this exceptional drama will be available for a wide, global audience via HBO Max...
- 10/14/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy and John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Toby Wallace.
Toby Wallace’s turn as a small-time drug dealer in Shannon Murphy’s debut feature Babyteeth has won him the Venice Film Festival’s Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor.
It is the second year in a row that the prize has been won by an Australian, with last year’s gong going to Baykali Ganambarr for his debut performance in Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale.
In Babyteeth, Wallace stars as Moses, the love interest of Eliza Scanlen’s Milla, a terminally ill teenager. Their relationship is a nightmare for Milla’s parents, played by Ben Mendelsohn and Essie Davis, but Milla teaches those in her orbit how to live like there is nothing to lose.
Produced by Alex White and based on Rita Kalnejais’ Belvoir Theatre play of the same name, the film was critically lauded after its debut in competition at Venice last week.
Variety...
Toby Wallace’s turn as a small-time drug dealer in Shannon Murphy’s debut feature Babyteeth has won him the Venice Film Festival’s Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor.
It is the second year in a row that the prize has been won by an Australian, with last year’s gong going to Baykali Ganambarr for his debut performance in Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale.
In Babyteeth, Wallace stars as Moses, the love interest of Eliza Scanlen’s Milla, a terminally ill teenager. Their relationship is a nightmare for Milla’s parents, played by Ben Mendelsohn and Essie Davis, but Milla teaches those in her orbit how to live like there is nothing to lose.
Produced by Alex White and based on Rita Kalnejais’ Belvoir Theatre play of the same name, the film was critically lauded after its debut in competition at Venice last week.
Variety...
- 9/9/2019
- by jkeast
- IF.com.au
Joker won over audiences in Venice Photo: Courtesy of Nyff Todd Phillips' Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, has won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
The film about the Batman villain, which has inspired a slew of debate online since its premiere, will be released in the UK on October.
Roman Polanski's An Officer And A Spy - which had already sparked controversy by being included due to the director's Us fugitive status after his conviction for statutory rape in 1978 - won the Grand Jury Prize.
Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner, who stars in his dramatisation of the Dreyfus affair political scandal - which also won the Fipresci award - collected the award on his behalf.
The Silver Lion went to Roy Andersson for About Endlessness, while writer/director Yonfan won the best screenplay for his Hong Kong animation No. 7 Cherry Lane.
The acting awards in the main...
The film about the Batman villain, which has inspired a slew of debate online since its premiere, will be released in the UK on October.
Roman Polanski's An Officer And A Spy - which had already sparked controversy by being included due to the director's Us fugitive status after his conviction for statutory rape in 1978 - won the Grand Jury Prize.
Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner, who stars in his dramatisation of the Dreyfus affair political scandal - which also won the Fipresci award - collected the award on his behalf.
The Silver Lion went to Roy Andersson for About Endlessness, while writer/director Yonfan won the best screenplay for his Hong Kong animation No. 7 Cherry Lane.
The acting awards in the main...
- 9/8/2019
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
JokerIn CompetitionGolden Lion – Joker (Todd Philipps) | ReviewSilver Lion (Grand Jury Prize) – An Officer and a Spy (Roman Polanski) | ReviewSilver Lion (Best Director) – Roy Andersson (About Endlessness) | ReviewCoppa Volpi for Best Actress – Ariane Ascaride (Gloria Mundi)Coppa Volpi for Best Actor – Luca Marinelli (Martin Eden) | ReviewBest Screenplay – Yonfan (No. 7 Cherry Lane)Special Jury Prize – La Mafia non è più quella di una Volta (Franco Maresco)Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress – Toby Wallace (Babyteeth) | ReviewOrizzontiAtlantisOrizzonti Award for Best Film – Atlantis (Valentyn Vasyanovych)Orizzonti Award for Best Director – Théo Court (Blanco en Blanco)Special Orizzonti Jury Prize – Verdict (Raymund Ribay Gutierrez)Orizzonti Award for Best Actress – Marta Nieto (Madre)Orizzonti Award for Best Actor — Bik Eneich (Un fils)Orizzonti Award for Best Screenplay – Jessica Palud, Philippe Lioret, Diastème (Revenir)Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film – Darling (Salim Sadiq)Lion of the Future AwardYou Will Die at 20 (Amjad Abu Alala...
- 9/8/2019
- MUBI
The 2019 Venice International Film Festival has come to a close and has announced its award winners. The coveted Golden Lion went to — egads — Todd Phillips‘ “Joker,” a comic-book-inspired origin story of Batman’s arch-nemesis as brought to twisted life by Joaquin Phoenix. But don’t guffaw. The film, partly inspired by Martin Scorsese‘s lonely outsiders in “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy,” currently has a positive Rotten Tomatoes rating of 86% — with much praise aimed at its star’s performance as the Clown Prince of Crime.
However, those critics who gave the dark R-rated movie a thumbs down didn’t hold back in their grousing over this attempt to display the sociopathic instincts that take root in angry urban misfits who are determined to leave their mark. “Time” critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote these damning words: “Phillips may want us to think he’s giving us a movie all about the emptiness of our culture,...
However, those critics who gave the dark R-rated movie a thumbs down didn’t hold back in their grousing over this attempt to display the sociopathic instincts that take root in angry urban misfits who are determined to leave their mark. “Time” critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote these damning words: “Phillips may want us to think he’s giving us a movie all about the emptiness of our culture,...
- 9/8/2019
- by Susan Wloszczyna
- Gold Derby
The 2019 Venice International Film Festival has wrapped, and this year’s edition has announced its award winners. The Golden Lion, the festival’s top laureate, went to “Joker,” which is a strong statement from this year’s competition jury led by Lucrecia Martel. See the complete list of this year’s winners below.
In recent years, the Venice Golden Lion has gone to films that went on to have legs in the awards-season conversation stateside. Last year’s Lion went to Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” which won three Academy Awards for Netflix but lost Best Picture to “Green Book.” The year prior, the Golden Lion went to Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water,” which won Best Picture at the Oscars in 2018.
In a surprise upset over Joaquin Phoenix in hot competition title “Joker” (until it carried off with the Golden Lion), Best Actor went to Luca Marinelli for...
In recent years, the Venice Golden Lion has gone to films that went on to have legs in the awards-season conversation stateside. Last year’s Lion went to Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” which won three Academy Awards for Netflix but lost Best Picture to “Green Book.” The year prior, the Golden Lion went to Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water,” which won Best Picture at the Oscars in 2018.
In a surprise upset over Joaquin Phoenix in hot competition title “Joker” (until it carried off with the Golden Lion), Best Actor went to Luca Marinelli for...
- 9/7/2019
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Refresh for latest…: The 76th Venice Film Festival draws to a close tonight with the winners about to be announced from inside the Sala Grande on the Lido. It’s been another year replete with strong movies hungry for awards season attention, as well as a fair share of controversy. And, it’s anybody’s guess which way Lucrecia Martel’s jury will swing.
Among the most contested titles, from even before the fest kicked off, is Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy which nevertheless held sway with Italian critics in an annual poll. Any win tonight would certainly seem to cement the divide between U.S. and Euro perspectives in the #MeToo era.
Overall, and for Hollywood, among the biggest show-stopping moments of the past 10 days was the world premiere of Warner Bros’ Joker with a mesmerizing turn by star Joaquin Phoenix. Also highly-praised are such...
Among the most contested titles, from even before the fest kicked off, is Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy which nevertheless held sway with Italian critics in an annual poll. Any win tonight would certainly seem to cement the divide between U.S. and Euro perspectives in the #MeToo era.
Overall, and for Hollywood, among the biggest show-stopping moments of the past 10 days was the world premiere of Warner Bros’ Joker with a mesmerizing turn by star Joaquin Phoenix. Also highly-praised are such...
- 9/7/2019
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
Roman Polanski wins the Silver Lion grand jury prize for An Officer And A Spy.
Todd Phillips’ Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the DC Comics villain, cemented its Oscar credentials after winning the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
At tonight’s award ceremony (September 7) the Silver Lion grand jury prize went to Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy. Despite the controversy following the director, the film also picked up the Fipresci prize yesterday.
Swedish veteran Roy Andersson won the best director award for comedy About Endlessness.
The Lucrecia Martel-led jury awarded best screenplay to Hong Kong animation No.
Todd Phillips’ Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the DC Comics villain, cemented its Oscar credentials after winning the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
At tonight’s award ceremony (September 7) the Silver Lion grand jury prize went to Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy. Despite the controversy following the director, the film also picked up the Fipresci prize yesterday.
Swedish veteran Roy Andersson won the best director award for comedy About Endlessness.
The Lucrecia Martel-led jury awarded best screenplay to Hong Kong animation No.
- 9/7/2019
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
Todd Phillips’ dark supervillain origin story “Joker” has come up trumps at the Venice Film Festival, taking the Golden Lion from a jury headed by Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel. Controversial veteran Roman Polanski, meanwhile, took the runner-up Grand Jury Prize for his film “An Officer and a Spy,” capping a festival marked by debate over gender representation and the impact of #MeToo in the industry.
It’s a rarity for a major Hollywood studio production to take the top prize at Venice, and unprecedented for a superhero-adjacent property to take any such honor, but the Warner Bros. title established itself early on as the festival’s lightning rod: a film that sparked headlines and critical discussion to the very end of the festival, as many other competing titles came and went without a ripple.
Variety chief critic Owen Gleiberman was among its many champions, acclaiming it as “a neo-‘Taxi Driver...
It’s a rarity for a major Hollywood studio production to take the top prize at Venice, and unprecedented for a superhero-adjacent property to take any such honor, but the Warner Bros. title established itself early on as the festival’s lightning rod: a film that sparked headlines and critical discussion to the very end of the festival, as many other competing titles came and went without a ripple.
Variety chief critic Owen Gleiberman was among its many champions, acclaiming it as “a neo-‘Taxi Driver...
- 9/7/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
The regular major-festival presence of the films of Robert Guédiguian is a curious, if not wholly unwelcome, anomaly. Amid punchier, more provocative, more aesthetically challenging arthouse titles, his work moves to the calmer rhythms of classical naturalism, in which each new title feels more like a new chapter in a career-spanning novel — or a book of interconnected short stories, perhaps — about life and love and social class in the suburbs of Marseille.
Working with the same troupe of excellent actors he has cast in differing permutations through the years, most notably his wife Ariane Ascaride who stars in their twentieth collaboration here, and occupying the same compassionately observed, elegiac register that his mid-to-late middle-age titles have tended to embrace, “Gloria Mundi” is, again, a contemporary, intergenerational, socially conscientious, bittersweet family drama set in the southern French port city. And, at least until an ending marred by some scrappy filmmaking as...
Working with the same troupe of excellent actors he has cast in differing permutations through the years, most notably his wife Ariane Ascaride who stars in their twentieth collaboration here, and occupying the same compassionately observed, elegiac register that his mid-to-late middle-age titles have tended to embrace, “Gloria Mundi” is, again, a contemporary, intergenerational, socially conscientious, bittersweet family drama set in the southern French port city. And, at least until an ending marred by some scrappy filmmaking as...
- 9/6/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Paris-based company will also begin selling Robert Guédiguian’s ‘Gloria Mundi’.
Paris-based sales company mk2 will kick off sales on Manele Labidi’s Tunisia-set comedy-drama Arab Blues, starring Golshifteh Farahani, at the Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris (Jan 17-21).
Farahani, whose recent credits include Girls Of The Sun and Paterson, plays a psychoanalyst who opens up a practice in a working-class suburb of the Tunisian capital Tunis not long after the country’s 2011 revolution and attempts to treat a procession of colourful clients.
“It is a sophisticated comedy in the way it offers a fascinating window into modern Tunisia at a crossroads,...
Paris-based sales company mk2 will kick off sales on Manele Labidi’s Tunisia-set comedy-drama Arab Blues, starring Golshifteh Farahani, at the Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris (Jan 17-21).
Farahani, whose recent credits include Girls Of The Sun and Paterson, plays a psychoanalyst who opens up a practice in a working-class suburb of the Tunisian capital Tunis not long after the country’s 2011 revolution and attempts to treat a procession of colourful clients.
“It is a sophisticated comedy in the way it offers a fascinating window into modern Tunisia at a crossroads,...
- 1/17/2019
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Siblings reunite and re-evaluate their lives and relationships in this self-regarding variation on a theme
Robert Guédiguian has returned to Marseille, with its bright, fresh sunshine and the Mediterranean’s habitual dazzling blue. It never seems to rain in his Marseille – maybe to compensate for the bad psychological weather.
Again, Guédiguian has assembled his family-repertory cast of veterans. Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Gérard Meylan play middle-aged siblings Angèle, Joseph and Armand, who are uneasily reunited when their widowed father suffers a stroke, and they have to work out how they feel about each other and about their hometown.
Robert Guédiguian has returned to Marseille, with its bright, fresh sunshine and the Mediterranean’s habitual dazzling blue. It never seems to rain in his Marseille – maybe to compensate for the bad psychological weather.
Again, Guédiguian has assembled his family-repertory cast of veterans. Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Gérard Meylan play middle-aged siblings Angèle, Joseph and Armand, who are uneasily reunited when their widowed father suffers a stroke, and they have to work out how they feel about each other and about their hometown.
- 1/11/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Red carpet protest highlighted fact only 82 women have been honoured in Official Selection over 71 editions of festival.
Cate Blanchett and Agnes Varda led 82 female industry figures in a silent ascent of the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday protesting the lack of female representation at the event over its 71 editions.
Moving, historic, 82 women from all countries and professions in cinema have just made the red carpet entrance for Les Filles Du Soleil (Girls Of The Sun) by Eva Husson. #Cannes2018 #Competition pic.twitter.com/0YY9SNbRqg
— Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) May 12, 2018
Other stars joining the protest...
Cate Blanchett and Agnes Varda led 82 female industry figures in a silent ascent of the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday protesting the lack of female representation at the event over its 71 editions.
Moving, historic, 82 women from all countries and professions in cinema have just made the red carpet entrance for Les Filles Du Soleil (Girls Of The Sun) by Eva Husson. #Cannes2018 #Competition pic.twitter.com/0YY9SNbRqg
— Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) May 12, 2018
Other stars joining the protest...
- 5/12/2018
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Three middle-aged siblings find themselves in their titular childhood home after their father has had a stroke in The House by the Sea (La Villa), another workmanlike and working-class story against the backdrop of the Marseille area that has the gentle rhythms and knowing ways of most of French filmmaker Robert Guediguian’s output. It also again stars his regular actors, including Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Gerard Meylan, which provides the kind of continuity that allows the director to throw in a flashback to 30-odd years earlier by just editing in a piece of his 1985 film Ki Lo Sa.
...
...
- 9/2/2017
- by Boyd van Hoeij
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Exclusive: Company also adds new films by Guédiguian, Moussaoui and Risuleo on eve of Cannes.
Paris-based MK2 Films will launch sales in Cannes on an upcoming bio-doc about 1960s icon Marianne Faithfull [pictured] by French actress and director Sandrine Bonnaire.
Simply entitled Faithfull, it will follow the singer’s life journey, from being discovered at the age of 17 in 1960s ‘Swinging London’; to her rock ‘n’ roll life with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger; her battle with drugs and alcohol addiction and rebirth as a performer in later life.
Developed in close co-operation with Faithfull, it is set to feature interviews with Jagger, Salman Rushdie, Anselm Kiefer, Nick Cave and Damon Albarn.
It is Bonnaire’s second documentary after My Name Is Sabine, about her severely autistic sister, which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2007. Paris-based Cinétéve is producing, with the backing of Arte, for a 2017 delivery.
New Talents: Moussaoui and Risuleo
The documentary is among four new...
Paris-based MK2 Films will launch sales in Cannes on an upcoming bio-doc about 1960s icon Marianne Faithfull [pictured] by French actress and director Sandrine Bonnaire.
Simply entitled Faithfull, it will follow the singer’s life journey, from being discovered at the age of 17 in 1960s ‘Swinging London’; to her rock ‘n’ roll life with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger; her battle with drugs and alcohol addiction and rebirth as a performer in later life.
Developed in close co-operation with Faithfull, it is set to feature interviews with Jagger, Salman Rushdie, Anselm Kiefer, Nick Cave and Damon Albarn.
It is Bonnaire’s second documentary after My Name Is Sabine, about her severely autistic sister, which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2007. Paris-based Cinétéve is producing, with the backing of Arte, for a 2017 delivery.
New Talents: Moussaoui and Risuleo
The documentary is among four new...
- 5/9/2016
- ScreenDaily
The travails and triumphs of teachers have been ample fodder for filmmakers almost since the start of cinema. But it wasn’t until the strains of “Rock Around the Clock” at the start of Blackboard Jungle over 60 years ago that the movies really delved into the true life frustrations that many educators faced. Not only was there rampant violence, but an overall apathy often squelched any attempts at learning. Through the years, similar themes have been explored, from Up The Down Staircase to Dangerous Minds. The teachers in those films struggle to get through to the students, to connect, engage, motivate. Well, it turns out such struggles are universal, even in Paris. That’s the setting of the new drama Once In A Lifetime.
After we witness a heated argument between in the administrative offices over religious garb, we then meet the high school teacher trying against incredible odds to...
After we witness a heated argument between in the administrative offices over religious garb, we then meet the high school teacher trying against incredible odds to...
- 11/10/2015
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Hovering around the twenty-one to twenty-four feature film mark with at least a quarter of those films belonging to first time filmmakers, the Quinzaine des Realisateurs (a.k.a Directors’ Fortnight) has in the past couple of years, counted on a healthy supply of French, Spanish and Belgium produced film items, and has been geared towards the offbeat genre items as with last year’s edition curated by Edouard Waintrop and co. To be unveiled on the 22nd, as we attempted with our Critics’ Week predix, Blake Williams, Nicholas Bell and I (Eric Lavallee) are thinking out loud and hedging our bets on what the section might look like or what the programmers might be looking at for 2014. Here is our predictions overview:
Alleluia
Six years after presenting Vinyan at the Venice Film Festival, Fabrice Du Welz finally returns with potentially not one, but a pair of works for the ’14 campaign.
Alleluia
Six years after presenting Vinyan at the Venice Film Festival, Fabrice Du Welz finally returns with potentially not one, but a pair of works for the ’14 campaign.
- 4/16/2014
- by IONCINEMA.com Contributing Writers
- IONCINEMA.com
The Sweeney (15)
(Nick Love, 2012, UK) Ray Winstone, Ben Drew, Hayley Atwell, Damian Lewis, 112 mins
The original TV cop show has been so updated here, it barely registers as the same product. But for all the steely modern cityscapes and pulsating action, this a 21st century cop thriller with 1970s values, both in terms of its shouty, louty, rule-bending lawmen (Winstone is a parody of himself) and its "hand in your badge" cop-movie cliches. And as for political correctness – leave it aaaaht!
Premium Rush (12A)
(David Koepp, 2012, Us) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dania Ramirez, Michael Shannon. 91 mins
This zippy-chase thriller puts you in the saddle of an ace New York cycle courier, seeking to deliver a mystery package that everyone's after. It's a carbon-neutral Speed.
To Rome With Love (12A)
(Woody Allen, 2012, Us/Ita/Spa) Jesse Eisenberg, Penélope Cruz, 112 mins
After the blip of Midnight In Paris, it's back to the usual late-period...
(Nick Love, 2012, UK) Ray Winstone, Ben Drew, Hayley Atwell, Damian Lewis, 112 mins
The original TV cop show has been so updated here, it barely registers as the same product. But for all the steely modern cityscapes and pulsating action, this a 21st century cop thriller with 1970s values, both in terms of its shouty, louty, rule-bending lawmen (Winstone is a parody of himself) and its "hand in your badge" cop-movie cliches. And as for political correctness – leave it aaaaht!
Premium Rush (12A)
(David Koepp, 2012, Us) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dania Ramirez, Michael Shannon. 91 mins
This zippy-chase thriller puts you in the saddle of an ace New York cycle courier, seeking to deliver a mystery package that everyone's after. It's a carbon-neutral Speed.
To Rome With Love (12A)
(Woody Allen, 2012, Us/Ita/Spa) Jesse Eisenberg, Penélope Cruz, 112 mins
After the blip of Midnight In Paris, it's back to the usual late-period...
- 9/14/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Chicago – In our special French film festival edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two passes up for grabs to the Chicago showing of the film “The Hedgehog” at the closing night of the Music Box Theatre’s Chicago French Film Festival! “The Hedgehog” star Josiane Balasko will be at this showing in person!
The film’s original title is “Le hérisson”. “The Hedgehog” stars Josiane Balasko, Garance Le Guillermic, Togo Igawa, Anne Brochet, Ariane Ascaride, Wladimir Yordanoff, Sarah Lepicard, Jean-Luc Porraz and Gisèle Casadesus from writer and director Mona Achache based on the novel by Muriel Barbery.
To win your free pass to the closing-night Chicago showing of “The Hedgehog” at the Chicago French Film Festival courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just answer our question below. That’s it! This showing is on Sunday, July 24, 2011 at 7 p.m. at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. Directions to enter this...
The film’s original title is “Le hérisson”. “The Hedgehog” stars Josiane Balasko, Garance Le Guillermic, Togo Igawa, Anne Brochet, Ariane Ascaride, Wladimir Yordanoff, Sarah Lepicard, Jean-Luc Porraz and Gisèle Casadesus from writer and director Mona Achache based on the novel by Muriel Barbery.
To win your free pass to the closing-night Chicago showing of “The Hedgehog” at the Chicago French Film Festival courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just answer our question below. That’s it! This showing is on Sunday, July 24, 2011 at 7 p.m. at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. Directions to enter this...
- 7/21/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Title: The Hedgehog (Le Herisson) Directed By: Mona Achache Written By: Mona Achache, from Muriel Barbery’s novel “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” Cast: Josiane Balasko, Garance Le Guillermic, Togo Igawa, Anne Brochet, Ariane Ascaride Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 6/28/11 Opens: August 19, 2011 Things are seldom what they seem. An eleven-year-old girl, one would figure, would be watching Disney cartoons, checking out her email on a BlackBerry, and giggling with friends over boys in her class. A janitor who mops the floors of a building but probably would not know how to fix a leaky sink would hardly be expected to curl up with Tolstoy. Yet both of these...
- 6/30/2011
- by Brian Corder
- ShockYa
This week production began on an Audrey Tautou toplined project which once again taps into familiar semi-dramatic rom-comedic functions as some of her more recent string of roles. Having just completed filming on actor-turned director Jalil Lespert's Des vents contraries, she'll be shooting in the French capitol for author turned director David Foenkinos who is turning his best-seller novel Delicacy into a feature film. Tautou will be paired alongside Belgium's François Damiens (nominated for the 2011 Best Supporting Actor César for Heartbreaker). 2.4.7 Films' Marc-Antoine Robert and Xavier Rigault are producing. Gist: Also starring Bruno Todeschini, Joséphine de Meaux, Mélanie Bernier, Pio Marmai, Monique Chaumette, Christophe Malavoy and the always enjoyable Ariane Ascaride, here's the book description: Nathalie and François had been the perfect couple, and perfectly happy. But after François dies suddenly, only seven years into their still blissful marriage, the widowed Nathalie begins to erect a fortress around her...
- 3/11/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
PARIS -- The cinema of Robert Guediguian is associated with the sunny skies, blue waters and picturesque accents of Marseilles, where he has shot most of his films.
Lady Jane marks quite a sea change for the filmmaker, who has previously delved into such genres as melodrama (Marie-Jo and Her 2 Lovers) and the biopic (The Last Mitterrand). Trying his hand at film noir, the director penned a remarkably dark revenge story. Theatrical prospects are solid since the genre is appreciated by audiences worldwide. The film opens April 9 in France and screened in Competition at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Lady Jane follows two men and a woman, Francois, Rene and Muriel, who used to rob banks in the 1980s. They chose not to remain in contact until the kidnapping of Muriel's teen son. They reunite to investigate the case and render their own justice.
Flashbacks reveal why the gang quit a life of crime and broke up. The past haunts the characters, adding new perspectives to the contemporary story. Until someone makes the right move, vengeance will destroy the lives of many. Lady Jane is a remarkable comment on the whole notion of revenge.
Guediguian has spotted places in Marseilles no filmmaker has ever filmed, such as Francois' boat repair workshop, in a creek far away from the Provence cliches of turquoise waters and heavenly bays. Most of the film takes place at night, or in gloomy exteriors. Guediguian doesn't avoid the representation of violence, including a surprising and shocking murder scene essential to the narration.
Still faithful to his troupe of actors (a most unusual tendency in contemporary cinema), Guediguian offers again his wife Ariane Ascaride and his longtime friends Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Gerard Meylan the three major parts. Darroussin is especially good as a discreet villain who tries hard to be a good father and husband but discovers he still harbors a violent streak. Often cast in comedies for his good-natured looks and natural humor, he proves again, after Cedric Kahn's Red Lights and his own Premonition, that he is never so good as when he is unsettling.
LADY JANE
Agat Films & Cie, France 3 Cinema
Credits:
Director-producer: Robert Guediguian
Screenwriters: Robert Guediguian, Jean-Louis Milesi
Director of photography: Pierre Milon
Production designer: Michel Vandestien
Costume designers: Juliette Chanaud, Anne-Marie Giacalone
Editor: Bernard Sasia
Cast:
Muriel: Ariane Ascaride
Francois: Jean-Pierre Darroussin
Rene: Gerard Meylan
Le jeune homme: Yann Tregouet
Charlotte: Frederique Bonnal
Solange: Pascale Roberts
Running time -- 102 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Lady Jane marks quite a sea change for the filmmaker, who has previously delved into such genres as melodrama (Marie-Jo and Her 2 Lovers) and the biopic (The Last Mitterrand). Trying his hand at film noir, the director penned a remarkably dark revenge story. Theatrical prospects are solid since the genre is appreciated by audiences worldwide. The film opens April 9 in France and screened in Competition at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Lady Jane follows two men and a woman, Francois, Rene and Muriel, who used to rob banks in the 1980s. They chose not to remain in contact until the kidnapping of Muriel's teen son. They reunite to investigate the case and render their own justice.
Flashbacks reveal why the gang quit a life of crime and broke up. The past haunts the characters, adding new perspectives to the contemporary story. Until someone makes the right move, vengeance will destroy the lives of many. Lady Jane is a remarkable comment on the whole notion of revenge.
Guediguian has spotted places in Marseilles no filmmaker has ever filmed, such as Francois' boat repair workshop, in a creek far away from the Provence cliches of turquoise waters and heavenly bays. Most of the film takes place at night, or in gloomy exteriors. Guediguian doesn't avoid the representation of violence, including a surprising and shocking murder scene essential to the narration.
Still faithful to his troupe of actors (a most unusual tendency in contemporary cinema), Guediguian offers again his wife Ariane Ascaride and his longtime friends Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Gerard Meylan the three major parts. Darroussin is especially good as a discreet villain who tries hard to be a good father and husband but discovers he still harbors a violent streak. Often cast in comedies for his good-natured looks and natural humor, he proves again, after Cedric Kahn's Red Lights and his own Premonition, that he is never so good as when he is unsettling.
LADY JANE
Agat Films & Cie, France 3 Cinema
Credits:
Director-producer: Robert Guediguian
Screenwriters: Robert Guediguian, Jean-Louis Milesi
Director of photography: Pierre Milon
Production designer: Michel Vandestien
Costume designers: Juliette Chanaud, Anne-Marie Giacalone
Editor: Bernard Sasia
Cast:
Muriel: Ariane Ascaride
Francois: Jean-Pierre Darroussin
Rene: Gerard Meylan
Le jeune homme: Yann Tregouet
Charlotte: Frederique Bonnal
Solange: Pascale Roberts
Running time -- 102 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/22/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
- Today's nine title announcement for the Berlin Festival’s main competition section (the 58th edition runs between Feb. 7-17.) is an early sign that the 2008 year in film is rich in international film from all corners of the globe and that the upcoming Cannes film festival is going to be loaded once again with heavyweight titles. Out of the titles I'm most looking forward to seeing are the little known Mike Leigh project called Happy-Go-Lucky and Erick Zonca’s French thriller Julia starring Tilda Swinton, and the postponed domestic release of Isabel Coixet’s Elegy. Here is the 9-list:Feuerherz (Heart of Fire) Germany/Austria (adapted from the bestseller by Senait Mehari) by Luigi Falorni (The Story of the Weeping Camel) with Letekidan Micael Julia France by Erick Zonca (The Dreamlife of Angels) with Tilda Swinton, Aidan Gould, Saúl Rubinek Lady Jane France By Robert Guédiguian (Le Promeneur du champ de Mars,
- 1/9/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
Emotionally turbulent, harsh in its details and overall taxing to watch -- but a rewarding experience for those who relish gusts of Gallic gloom -- "La Ville Est Tranquille" (The Town Is Quiet) unspooled Thursday at the Directors Guild of America as part of the fifth City of Lights, City of Angels Film Festival.
Picked up for distribution by New Yorker Films and earning rave reviews since its premiere in August at the Venice (Italy) International Film Festival, "Ville" is directed by Robert Guediguian ("Marius et Jeannette") and features his wife, Ariane Ascaride, as the central character, a working-class mother with a daughter addicted to heroin. Comparable to "Amores Perros" and other brutally realistic cinematic portraits of a city, "Ville" is a memorable feast for foreign-film connoisseurs but not fated to strike it big with domestic audiences.
The ville of the title is modern-day Marseilles -- a large canvas, to be sure, and one shown in a panoramic, Eadweard Muybridge-like, 360-degree opening shot -- where things are hardly tranquil. The choices facing a lost soul like Michele (Ascaride) are unbearably grim, while her job at a fish market is unromanticized drudgery. She and her self-destructive daughter, Fiona (Julie-Marie Parmentier), live alone with the latter's baby, and what friends they have are incapable of averting a truly heart-wrenching tragedy that's several degrees more disturbing than anything shown about drug addiction in "Traffic".
Ostensibly an ensemble piece with intersecting characters and multiple plot lines, "Ville" takes its cue from the bluesy rhythms of the Janis Joplin songs on the soundtrack. While all the stories have beginnings, middles and ends, one is less aware than usual of the storytelling mechanics and generally stays pinned in one's seat as the subtitled film nonjudgmentally probes the social and psychological relationships of a dozen or so troubled people from many walks of life.
Among those one encounters are Jean-Pierre Darroussin as a lonely taxi driver who hangs out with prostitutes and starts to fancy Michele is his girlfriend, Gerard Meylan as a bartender with dark secrets and Christine Brucher as a musician with an insufferably useless husband she cheats on with an idealistic former prisoner from Africa (Alexandre Ogou). There are other memorably rendered minor characters and bit players, and the film has light, gentle moments. But as it gathers momentum at the end, "Ville" becomes awfully dark and surprises one with its final twists.
LA VILLE EST TRANQUILLE
New Yorker Films
Agat Films, Diaphana Films, Le Studio Canal Plus
Director: Robert Guediguian
Screenwriters: Jean-Louis Milesi, Robert Guediguian
Producers: Robert Guediguian, Michel Saint-Jean, Gilles Sandoz
Executive producer: Bruno Ghariani
Director of photography: Bernard Cavalie
Production designer: Michel Vandestien
Editor: Bernard Sasia
Costume designer: Catherine Keller
Color/stereo
Cast:
Michele: Ariane Ascaride
Fiona: Julie-Marie Parmentier
Paul: Jean-Pierre Darroussin
Claude: Pierre Banderet
Gerard: Gerard Meylan
Abderramane: Alexandre Ogou
Viviane Froment: Christine Brucher
Running time -- 131 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Picked up for distribution by New Yorker Films and earning rave reviews since its premiere in August at the Venice (Italy) International Film Festival, "Ville" is directed by Robert Guediguian ("Marius et Jeannette") and features his wife, Ariane Ascaride, as the central character, a working-class mother with a daughter addicted to heroin. Comparable to "Amores Perros" and other brutally realistic cinematic portraits of a city, "Ville" is a memorable feast for foreign-film connoisseurs but not fated to strike it big with domestic audiences.
The ville of the title is modern-day Marseilles -- a large canvas, to be sure, and one shown in a panoramic, Eadweard Muybridge-like, 360-degree opening shot -- where things are hardly tranquil. The choices facing a lost soul like Michele (Ascaride) are unbearably grim, while her job at a fish market is unromanticized drudgery. She and her self-destructive daughter, Fiona (Julie-Marie Parmentier), live alone with the latter's baby, and what friends they have are incapable of averting a truly heart-wrenching tragedy that's several degrees more disturbing than anything shown about drug addiction in "Traffic".
Ostensibly an ensemble piece with intersecting characters and multiple plot lines, "Ville" takes its cue from the bluesy rhythms of the Janis Joplin songs on the soundtrack. While all the stories have beginnings, middles and ends, one is less aware than usual of the storytelling mechanics and generally stays pinned in one's seat as the subtitled film nonjudgmentally probes the social and psychological relationships of a dozen or so troubled people from many walks of life.
Among those one encounters are Jean-Pierre Darroussin as a lonely taxi driver who hangs out with prostitutes and starts to fancy Michele is his girlfriend, Gerard Meylan as a bartender with dark secrets and Christine Brucher as a musician with an insufferably useless husband she cheats on with an idealistic former prisoner from Africa (Alexandre Ogou). There are other memorably rendered minor characters and bit players, and the film has light, gentle moments. But as it gathers momentum at the end, "Ville" becomes awfully dark and surprises one with its final twists.
LA VILLE EST TRANQUILLE
New Yorker Films
Agat Films, Diaphana Films, Le Studio Canal Plus
Director: Robert Guediguian
Screenwriters: Jean-Louis Milesi, Robert Guediguian
Producers: Robert Guediguian, Michel Saint-Jean, Gilles Sandoz
Executive producer: Bruno Ghariani
Director of photography: Bernard Cavalie
Production designer: Michel Vandestien
Editor: Bernard Sasia
Costume designer: Catherine Keller
Color/stereo
Cast:
Michele: Ariane Ascaride
Fiona: Julie-Marie Parmentier
Paul: Jean-Pierre Darroussin
Claude: Pierre Banderet
Gerard: Gerard Meylan
Abderramane: Alexandre Ogou
Viviane Froment: Christine Brucher
Running time -- 131 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 4/19/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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