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The American French Film Festival unveiled the full-line up of its upcoming edition at a press conference at the Résidence de France in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, as the event returns after a one-year hiatus due to the Hollywood strikes.

The 28th edition, running October 29 to November 3 in the Director’s Guild of America Theatre Complex, will showcase 60 films and series, with 14 shorts, 14 Series and TV movies, and 32 feature films and documentaries, many of which are International, North American and U.S. premiere presentations.

As previously announced the event will be book-ended by Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez as the opening film and The Count of Monte Cristo, which will close the event.

The American French Film Festival was created and is produced by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, a collaboration between the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the Motion Picture Association (MPA), France’s Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers...

Pathé has unveiled a trailer for “Monsieur Aznavour,” showing the Golden-Globe nominated actor Tahar Rahim transformed as Charles Aznavour, the French-Armenian singer, songwriter and actor who sold more than 180 million records around the world.

The movie charts Aznavour’s rise to stardom in the 1950s and his friendships with many artists, including Edith Piaf, who took him with her on a tour of France and the U.S.

“Monsieur Aznavour” will be released by Pathé on Oct. 23. It’s directed by singer-turned-filmmakers Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade (“Patients”), and produced by Jean-Rachid Kallouche’s Kallouche Cinema and Mandarin & Compagnie, the banner behind Francois Ozon’s and Anne Fontaine’s films.

Kallouche, who teamed with Eric and Nicolas Altmayer at Mandarin on Grand Corps Malade and Idir’s previous films, is married to Katia Aznavour, the daughter of the late artist.

Rahim spoke to Variety briefly about his role...

Roschdy Zem, Sandrine Kiberlain and Elodie Bouchez have signed to star in Unchained, a prison-set dance feature to be directed by France’s Valerie Muller and choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj. Le Pacte is handling international sales.

Muller and Preljocaj previously collaborated on 2016 ballet drama Polina that screened in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori.

Zem will play an international renowned choreographer who launches a dance workshop in prison and guides inmates to break free of the chains binding them through dance as they seek redemption among their families outside the prison walls.

Unchained is being produced by Nicolas Mauvernay’s Mizar Films.

The inaugural Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival (Hiff) in Vietnam has unveiled its line-up of about 100 films, including 12 each for the Southeast Asia competition and for the first or second film competition, with directors Anne Fontaine and Hirokazu Kore-eda among its guests.

Scroll down for line-up

The Asian premiere of French biopic Bolero will open the festival on April 6. Director Fontaine and leading actor Raphaël Personnaz will be present for the film’s Asian premiere, which will take place at the city’s historic Opera House.

Further notable festival guests include acclaimed Japanese director Kore-eda who will receive...

French director Yann Gozlan is set to reunite with Pierre Niney, the French star of his two most successful movies “Un homme idéal” and “Black Box,” for his next film, “Gourou.”

“Gourou” is being co-produced by Wassim Beji at Wy Productions, the Paris-based company behind “Black Box and “Un Homme Ideal,” and Niney’s banner Ninety Films.

While the plot is currently under wraps, the project is being teased as a deep dive into the world of coaching and follows the rise of a personal development guru who turns out to be toxic. The script is by Jean-Baptiste Delafon, whose credits include “Of Money and Blood” which played at Venice, and Gozlan.

One of France’s most bankable and busiest French actors, Niney won a Cesar Award for his performance as French fashion legend Yves Saint Laurent in Jalil Lespert’s biopic in 2015, and went on to work with Anne Fontaine...

Music Box Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Solo,” Sophie Dupuis’s queer love story of two rising drag performers starring Théodore Pellerin (“Beau Is Afraid) and Félix Maritaud (“120 Bpm”).

The edgy film — which is repped by Snd and premiered at Toronto where it won best Canadian film — follows Simon, a rising star of Montreal drag queen scene, who falls in love with Olivier, the new recruit at the bar where he performs. While Simon believes he is experiencing an electrifying love story with Olivier, a toxic dynamic develops between them. At the same time, Simon’s mother, a famous opera singer, returns to work in the country after 15 years of absence. Fascinated by her, Simon persists in trying to create a bond with her, but in vain. Weakened by the failure of these two impossible relationships, Simon must learn how to find the love he deserves from within.

“No soul, no history, no residents,” laments one Berliner of Potsdamer Platz, where the Berlinale has been based since 2000.

Speculation is rife about whether the festival will move when its contract with the Berlinale Palast expires in 2027. Screening space has declined since the CineStar closed its multiplex in the Sony Centre - previously one of the key venues for festival and European Film Market screenings. Last year the CinemaxX Berlin, based in Postdamer Platz, reduced its seating capacity.

“We cannot use it for our audience screenings any more but we are very settled showing press and industry screenings there,” says Mariëtte Rissenbeek,...

Anne Fontaine’s Maurice Ravel biopic Boléro has sold to key territories for Snd following the film’s world premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam. Snd is now screening the film to buyers at the EFM.

Boléro has been snapped up by X-Verleih for Germany, Movies Inspired in Italy, O’Brother for Benelux, Gaga in Japan, Sphere in Canada, Cinemundo in Portugal, Njuta for Scandinavia, Agora for Switzerland, Beta in Bulgaria, Discovery in the Balkans, Cirko in Hungary, Aj Jet in Taiwan, Arna Media for Cis and Skeye for Airlines.

Raphael Personnaz stars as the famed composer as he prepares...

Every 15 minutes, according to a title at the end of director Anne Fontaine’s latest film, someone on earth plays Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro.” It’s a largely unprovable statement that is nonetheless borne out anecdotally by the familiarity of the tune, which crops up so frequently in concerts, movies, TV shows, commercials, dance recitals and at least one iconic 1980s ice skating routine, that it’s close to becoming sonic wallpaper. It’s a pleasant surprise then, that “Boléro,” Fontaine’s gently deconstructed Ravel biopic, while running long and never wholly airing out the stuffiness of “tortured genius” genre, does at minimum make us appreciate the music anew — its rustling snare drums, its snake-charmer woodwinds, its revving, roundabout rhythms.

Indeed Fontaine’s screenplay, co-written with Claire Barré, persuasively suggests that whatever ambivalence a modern viewer may feel toward the composition, Ravel, whose quiet peculiarities are sensitively underplayed by Raphaël Personnaz,...

Please don’t stop the music: Anne Fontaine isn’t done with it just yet.

Following “Boléro” — world premiering at International Film Festival Rotterdam — the noted director is developing another melodic project.

“It’s about a character who was a star at 10 years old. He had a ‘magic’ voice, but then he suddenly lost it. Years later, he is ready to come back. It’s a comedy, based on something real,” she says. Admitting that this time, she will swap classical compositions for popular tunes.

“I like songs: they are in our blood. We hear them and remember we lost a lover when they were playing. They mark our lives. There will be so much music [in this film]. And all these amazing voices, including a real-life singer making her film debut.”

New project will combine “cruelty and humor.”

“Our destiny might be cruel, but we are still able to laugh about it.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) opens this evening with New Zealand director Jonathan Olgilvie’s coming-of-age tale Head South set against the late 1970s, post-punk music culture of his home city of Christchurch.

IFFR previously selected Olgilvie’s sci-fi thriller Lone Wolf for its Big Screen Competition in 2021.

“It’s the first time we’re going to meet him in person because it was during Corona,” says IFFR Artistic Director Vanja Kaludjercic of the first selection.

“When you put the two films side by side, you ask how can one filmmaker make two such different films,” she adds. “We really admire his creativity and ingenuity.”

Over the course of the next 10 days, Rotterdam will screen some 440 works.

The Main Competition for this 53rd edition is characteristically diverse.

The 14 features in the running for the main Tiger Award include Brooklyn-based filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, exploring the life of the titular,...

Following a fully online 2021 event, a hybrid 2022 and last year’s 2023 comeback edition that saw most European distributors still struggling to stay afloat in a barely post-pandemic world, this year’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris was a “typical” market. And in 2024, typical is great.

“We haven’t had a typical market in four years. Everyone was back,” enthused Gilles Renouard, head of cinema for Rendez-Vous organiser Unifrance.

“Buyers are definitely more future-oriented,” he continued. “Last year, they were scared to buy films for theatrical release, but now they are confident in films that can work in their territories...

Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie, will be among those taking part in on-stage talks at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which runs Jan. 25 to Feb. 4.

Harry narrates the latest film by Amanda Kramer, “So Unreal,” an essay-documentary about the relationships between cinema, humanity and technology. On Jan. 27, the two will give an IFFR Talk discussing their work as artists with distinctive esthetics whose careers have developed across film and music.

As previously announced, other speakers in the IFFR Talk program include actor Sandra Hüller, and directors Anne Fontaine, Marco Bellocchio, Bill Plympton and Billy Woodberry.

Directors attending with their titles in the Limelight section, which is for films from established filmmakers, include Mexican filmmaker Amat Escalante with “Lost in the Night,” Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland with “Green Border” and Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania with “Four Daughters,” which is shortlisted for an Oscar.

Fontaine will attend the world premiere of her 19th feature film,...

Sandra Hüller, who is an awards contender with “The Zone of Interest” and “Anatomy of a Fall,” will be one of the guest speakers taking part in the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Talks program later this month.

In her talk, Hüller will “delve into her acting trajectory, discussing the highlights of her career, but also lesser-known performances – including work in the theater and other arts,” the festival said. She will talk about her approach to acting and character with an emphasis on “The Zone of Interest,” playing at this year’s festival, and the different methods of the directors she has collaborated with through the years.

The program also includes a talk by Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio, who comes to IFFR with his latest examination of Italian history, “Rapito.” In this wide-ranging talk, Bellocchio will “reveal his passion as a filmmaker and his emotional connection to all stages of the filmmaking process.

Snd will kick off sales for marriage thriller at Rendez-Vous in Paris.

Snd has taken on international sales for Anne Le Ny’s psychological thriller Out Of Control (Histoire d’Un Mariage) starring Vanessa Paradis, Omar Sy, José Garcia and Elodie Bouchez, ahead of Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.

Set in Brittany, the story follows a couple whose marriage is threatened when the husband’s first love returns to town.

It is produced by Bruno Levy’s Move Movie, with Snd releasing in France later this year. Snd is the film arm of France’s M6 Group.

“[Out Of Control] is a...

Other speakers at festival include Marco Bellocchio, Billy Woodberry and Anne Fontaine.

Sandra Hüller has joined the line-up of special guests confirmed for the talks programme at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), which runs from January 25-February 4.

Hüller will discuss her recent work, including on Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest, which plays in the IFFR 2024 Limelight section, and on the Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy Of A Fall for which she won the European Film Award for best actress in December 2023.

Also speaking in the IFFR Talks programme is Italian director Marco Bellocchio whose latest feature Rapito is screening at the festival.

Sandra Hüller Set For Rotterdam Talks Program

Awards season frontrunner Sandra Hüller has joined the roster of speakers lined up for the talks program of the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running from January 25 to February 4. She joins 16 previously announced talks guests who also include L.A. Rebellion filmmaker Billy Woodberry, veteran Italian director Marco Bellocchio, animation maestro Bill Plympton, French director Anne Fontaine and avant-garde German director Alexander Kluge, who continues to blaze a trail at the age of 91 with his new AI work Cosmic Miniatures. As previously announced, IFFR opens with Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk, coming-of-age comedy Head South and 14 titles are in the running for its top Tiger award.

Bavaria Fiction Restructures Development Team

Germany’s Bavaria Fiction is rejigging its development team with Thomas Kren placed in charge. Work has begun to restructure the unit, with Kren expanding his existing role to “accelerate and coordinate...

A record 54 market premieres will be hosted at the Rendez-Vous showcase held by the French film promotion org Unifrance in Paris which will kick off Jan. 16 with the world premiere of Pascal Bonitzer’s “Auction.”

The biggest film market dedicated exclusively to French movies, the Rendez-Vous in Paris will welcome 420 buyers from 50 countries and 47 sales companies. As many as 1,000 professionals have registered for the week-long event. Since Unifrance has now merged with TV France International, the event will also gather 100 TV buyers from 27 countries.

“After returning last year with a post-pandemic edition, we’re back to normal with over 400 buyers — and we even have new buyers from Quebec and Africa, along with about 15 Latin American distributors,” said Gilles Renouard, Unifrance’s co-managing director.

More than 80 completed movies will screen at the Rendez-Vous, 54 of which have never been shown at an international festival or market. Renouard says the large roster of...

M. Raihan Halim’s “La Luna” will close the 53rd edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam, which has also revealed the lineup of its Tiger competition section, a platform for up-and-coming filmmakers, and Big Screen Competition, a program for more established talent.

“La Luna,” which has its European premiere at the festival, is a comedy about a conservative Malaysian village shaken by the arrival of a lingerie store.

Among the Tiger competition films is British director Justin Anderson’s “Swimming Home,” starring Mackenzie Davis, Christopher Abbott and Ariane Labed. Adapted from Deborah Levy’s novel, it centers on Joe and Isabel, whose marriage is dying when Kitti, a naked stranger found floating in the pool at their holiday villa, is invited to stay. Kitti collects and eats poisonous plants, and Nina their teenage daughter is enthralled by her. The film, which is being sold by Bankside Films, is described as...

International Film Festival Rotterdam has revealed its lineup for the Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competitions. The festival runs from January 25-February 4. Scroll down for the full lists.

Head South by Jonathan Ogilvie will open the proceedings with M. Raihan Halim’s comedy La Luna on closing duties. The Tiger Competition jury will be comprised of Marco Müller, Ena Sendijarević, Nadia Turincev, Herman Yau and Billy Woodberry.

Also confirmed are the first names for the Talks lineup including Marco Bellocchio, Anne Fontaine, Alexander Kluge and Rachel Maclean.

Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic said today, “For over half a century, IFFR has stood as a haven for diverse voices – a convergence where artists share perspectives. Our program celebrates the resilience and creativity of global filmmakers, a testament to cinema’s power to transcend borders. From Indian to Japanese epics, a Kazakh thriller, Finnish Freudian reinterpretations, Dominican sci-fi and underground Iranian cinema,...

‘Swimming Home’ is directed by Justin Anderson and stars Mackenzie Davies, Christopher Abbott and Ariane Labed.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the Tiger and Big Screen programmes for the 3rd edition, taking place January 25 – February 4, 2024 in the Netherlands.

Justin Anderson’s Swimming Home, starring Mackenzie Davies, Christopher Abbott and Ariane Labed, is among the titles world premiering in the Tiger Competition.

Scroll down for full line-up

The drama is adapted from Deborah Levy’s novel about a woman who implores the help of a naked stranger found floating in her pool. It is produced by Emily Morgan’s UK outfit Quiddity Films,...

Mubi has unveiled their December 2023 lineup, featuring notable new releases such as Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents, Argentina’s Oscar this year; the Lily Gladstone-led drama The Unknown Country; Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beasts; and the José González documentary A Tiger in Paradise. Additional highlights include films from Olivier Assayas, Takeshi Kitano, Jean-Luc Godard, Kelly Reichardt, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, the Shaw Browers, Lars von Trier, Arnaud Desplechin, and more.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

December 1st

The House that Jack Built, directed by Lars von Trier | Chaos Reigns: The Films of Lars von Trier

Breaking the Waves, directed by Lars von Trier | Chaos Reigns: The Films of Lars von Trier

The Element of Crime, directed by Lars von Trier | Chaos Reigns: The Films of Lars von Trier

Europa, directed by Lars von Trier | Chaos Reigns: The Films of Lars von Trier

Epidemic, directed...

Elsa Zylberstein, the French actor-producer whose timely movie “Simone: Woman of a Century” was recently released in the U.S., has signed with CAA for representation.

The actor’s performance as Simone Veil, an Auschwitz survivor who became a feminist icon and human rights activist, earned critical praise and struck a chord with French audiences, becoming one of the highest-grossing French films of 2022.

Distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films in the U.S., Olivier Dahan’s biopic sheds light on how Veil became a revered figure within France’s male-dominated political world after surviving the camps, championing the 1975 law that legalized abortion in France. The Holocaust Museum in L.A. will host a special screening of the movie on Nov. 29 in the presence of Zylberstein. A similar event is also being organized in Washington, D.C.

The actor has also launched production vehicles in France and the U.S. to develop...

Mysius is a Cannes regular whose credits include ‘Ava’ and ‘The Five Devils’.

French writer-director Lea Mysius is set to write and direct her third feature, an adaptation of Laurent Mauvignier’s best-selling French thriller The Birthday Party (Histoires De La Nuit).

It is being produced by Marie-Ange Luciani’s Les Films de Pierre, whose credits include the Palme d’Or winning Anatomy Of A Fall, alongside Jean-Louis Livi’s F Comme Film, which produced Florian Zeller’sThe Father.

Set in a hamlet in rural France, the story follows a man and his wife, their daughter and an artist neighbour.

The American French Film Festival, which had been due to take place in L.A. from October 18 to 22, has been shelved due to the writers and actors strikes.

The Franco-American Cultural Fund (Facf) which oversees the event (formerly known as Colcoa) said it had made the difficult to decision to cancel the 2023 edition after a board meeting.

“The Facf Board of Directors determined this week that it was not possible to continue with business as usual,” the fund said in a statement.

The festival said it would still announce the full 2023 festival slate as originally planned on September 27 to honor the projects that were selected.

Previously announced elements of the program included the U.S. premiere of TV bio-drama Bardot, about the life of Brigitte Bardot, in the presence of co-creator Danièle Thompson.

“The Facf is keenly aware of the impact of this decision on the filmmakers, actors, producers, and...

Sales to kick off this week in Venice.

France TV Distribution has boarded Sylvain Desclous’ sensual French thriller The Victoria System (Le Système Victoria) and will kick off sales in Venice.

Based on popular French author Eric Reinhardt’s best-selling novel of the same name, Desclous’ third fiction feature is currently in production and stars Damien Bonnard and Jeanne Balibar, who also shared the screen in Ladj Ly’s Oscar-nominated debut feature Les Misérables.

The passion-filled story of power, sex and capitalism follows a man (Bonnard) overseeing the construction of the highest tower ever built in France whose life is...

Zylberstein unveils ambitious new slate of female-driven titles.

Isabel Coixet is in talks to direct Happy People Read And Drink Coffee, an adaptation of Agnes Martin-Lugand’s best-selling novel of the same name for Elsa Zylberstein’s fast-growing production company Sonia Films.

Mediawan Pictures is in advanced talks to co-produce the English and French-language film set between Paris and Ireland and is about a woman grieving her husband and daughter when a new love affair blossoms.

Zylberstein is also set to star in what is the latest project to be added to her female-focused film and TV slate.

The renowned French actress,...

Zylberstein unveils ambitious new slate of female-driven titles.

Isabel Coixet has signed to direct Happy People Read And Drink Coffee, an adaptation of Agnes Martin-Lugand’s best-selling novel of the same name for Elsa Zylberstein’s fast-growing production company Sonia Films.

Mediawan Pictures is in advanced talks to co-produce the English and French-language film set between Paris and Ireland and is about a woman grieving her husband and daughter when a new love affair blossoms.

Zylberstein is also set to star in what is the latest project to be added to her female-focused film and TV slate.

The renowned French actress,...

Florian Zeller, the Oscar-winning director and playwright of “The Father” and “The Son,” received the Medal of Honor, France’s highest decoration, at an intimate ceremony in Paris on Wednesday.

The event, hosted in the gardens of the French authors and composers guild (Sacd), gathered a flurry of talent and luminaries from the worlds of film, TV, theater and literature — reflecting the breadth of Zeller’s body of work. Zeller was appointed Knight of the Legion of Honor by France President Emmanuel Macron.

Guests included Isabelle Huppert, Pierre Arditi, Catherine Frot and Elodie Navarre who have starred in Zeller’s plays; Christopher Hampton, with whom he shares a best adapted screenplay Oscar for “The Father;” “Simone” actor Elsa Zylberstein; Mediawan boss Pierre-Antoine Capton, with whom he launched the L.A.-based company Blue Morning Pictures; Victoria Bedos (“La famille Belier”); Orange Studio’s Kristina Zimmermann and Sebastien Cauchon, who distributed...

Playtime has boarded “Monsieur Aznavour,” the prestige biopic of legendary French-Armenian Charles Aznavour starring Tahar Rahim. Budgeted at €26 million, the film will start principal photography on May 30. Pathé has scooped French rights and will give it a wide release in theaters.

Surely one of the hottest packages to hit this year’s Cannes market, the film will chart Aznavour’s sprawling life journey, from his poor childhood to his rise to fame, from his triumphs to his failures, from Paris to New York. Aznavour was devoted to his art until the very end, singing his songs in ten languages, on every stage, in every city, desperately searching for perfection. He sold more than 180 million records around the world.

Rahim, who’s rolling off Marvel’s “Madame Web” and Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,” is highly committed to the part and has been preparing it for months. He will be in Cannes...

Montreal-based company represents worldwide rights excluding Canada on both titles.

Montreal-based Sphere Films has added two completed features to its Cannes line-up and will launch sales on the Croisette later this month on Queen Tut and Red Rooms.

Reem Morsi (The Last Mark) directed Queen Tut, which stars Alexandra Billings from Transparent in the story of an Egyptian teenager who leaves Cairo when his mother dies and lands in the underground queer nightlife scene in Toronto where he confronts his mother’s death by becoming a drag artist – much to his father’s disapproval.

The Canadian drama is in English...

The Chinese Wuxia feature is from the co-writer of Wong Kar Wai’s ‘The Grandmaster’.

Amsterdam and Beijing-based sales outfit Fortissimo Films has secured international rights to Chinese martial arts drama 100 Yards, directed by Xu Haofeng and Xu Junfeng, and will launch sales at the Cannes market this month.

The film, locally titled Men Qian Bao Di, is in post-production for release this summer, and Fortissimo has already secured a pre-sale of the feature with Splendid for Germany. It is produced by Beijing-based Lumen Art and Culture.

Xu Haofeng is director of The Sword Identity, which played Venice and Toronto...

Fifty-nine French films were released in April with a market share of 47.4%.

France’s box office has confirmed its comeback with 19.1 million ticket sales in April, up 37.8% from the same month in 2022 and a 2.7% increase from the 2017-2019 average, marking the first time admissions have exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

Universal’s Super Mario Bros released on April 5, took the top spot for the month and, with more than 4.8m tickets sold to date, reigns as the top film of the year in the territory. Pathé’s The Three Musketeers – d’Artagnan, also released on April 5, followed with 2.3m tickets sold. The...

Norwegian distributor Fidalgo has acquired a number of award-winning titles following conversations began at the European Film Market in Berlin in February.

The company’s latest acquisitions include Fantastic Machine, directed by Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck and sold by Heretic. Fidalgo plans a theatrical release this autumn for the documentary about humanity’s obsession with the image. The film won Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision and the Ag Kino Award Cinema Vision Award at Berlinale Generation 14plus.

Fidalgo also bought another Sundance award-winning documentary, Anna Hints’ Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, sold by Autlook.

Film stars Raphael Personnaz and Jeanne Balibar.

Paris-based Snd has boarded Anne Fontaine’s Boléro about the birth of the renowned orchestral work from Maurice Ravel, now shooting in France.

Set in the Roaring 1920s, the film stars Raphael Personnaz, known for Our Brothers, Julia(s) and The French Minister, as the composer. Jeanne Balibar, who has appeared in Lost Illusions, Cold War and Grace Of Monaco, plays the Russian dancer-choreographer Ida Rubinstein who commissioned the now legendary music.

Snd, the film arm of France’s M6 group, is on board as co-producer and French distributor and is launching international sales at Cannes.

After recently playing her in Olivier Dahan’s Simone: Woman of the Century, Elsa Zylberstein will have another go at walking in the shoes and the penning writing skills of Simone de Beauvoir. Variety reports that the never-inactive Anne Fontaine is part of the filmmaker package that will bring the book to film adaptation of “Lettres à Nelson Algren” to life. The project fell on the laps of Christopher Hampton who’ll move from his initial treatment to screenwriting mode this summer. We figure the earliest this could move into production is sometime next year. Zylberstein has an invested interest in the project having landed the book rights.…...

Elsa Zylberstein (“Simone: Woman of the Century”) will star as the French feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir in a feature film that will be penned by Oscar-winning writer Christopher Hampton and directed by Anne Fontaine.

Zylberstein’s Sonia Films will produce the film with Philippe Carcassone’s banner Cine@ and Master Movie, the production vehicle of Marco and Lola Pacchioni.

Rather than a biopic, the movie will revolve around the passionate transatlantic romance between de Beauvoir and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nelson Algren.

Zylberstein has scooped the adaptation rights of de Beauvoir’s “Lettres à Nelson Algren” from Gallimard. Through those letters, the film will chart the pair’s affair, which spanned nearly two decades from 1947, in the aftermath of World War II, to 1964. Two-thirds of the movie will take place in Chicago, and the reminder will unfold in Paris.

Zylberstein said Hampton has penned a treatment and is expected to...

Oscar-winning writer Christopher Hampton is in talks to write a screenplay with French director Anne Fontaine about iconic feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nelson Algren’s transatlantic affair.

The playwright and screenwriter, who has won Oscars for The Father (2021) and Dangerous Liaisons (1989) and was also nominated for Atonement (2008), revealed he was in the early stages of the project during a masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra event on Monday.

“We had an initial discussion followed by a more detailed discussion a week ago. I really want to do it,” he told Deadline in an interview after the talk.

De Beauvoir and Algren met in Chicago in 1947 and immediately embarked on a passionate affair that endured for more than 20 years in spite of the complications of transatlantic travel and communication at the time.

Paris-based intellectual de Beauvoir was in the midst of completing her seminal...

Oscar and BAFTA-winning film producer David Parfitt is hoping to reunite with French producer Philippe Carcassonne following their successful collaboration on Florian Zeller’s Oscar-winning drama The Father.

Parfitt revealed his plans during a masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra talent incubator event on Sunday.

“He [Carcassonne] is developing something really interesting based on an Israeli novel called Pain, which he commissioned as a French screenplay but they have decided they want to do it in England in English,” Parfitt clarified after the talk.

The 2019 novel by Zeruya Shalev revolves around a woman revisiting the double trauma of being caught up in a terror attack and abandonment by a lover when he comes back into her life a decade later.

Carcassonne’s partner, the actress and director Anne Fontaine, whose credits include Coco Before Chanel, is attached to direct the film, in what would be her first English-language production.

Elsa Zylberstein, one of the most famous – and bankable — faces of French cinema, known for her Cesar-winning performance in “I’ve Loved You For So Long,” is preparing to emerge as a major film producer.

Having recently set up banners in France and the U.S., Zylberstein is actively developing a raft of films and series, working with the likes of Oscar-winning Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad (“The Cave”), Ted Braun (Darfur Now”) and Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton (“The Father”), among others. These include “Kingdom of Hope,” a movie about Elise Boghossian, a French acupuncturist and humanitarian worker in a war zone who has healed children victims of Isis . The movie will be directed by Fayyad, who is based in Berlin, and is being penned by Braun, based on Boghossian’s autobiographical book “Au royaume de l’espoir, il n’y a pas d’hiver.”

Zylberstein, who stands out from the...

Tahar Rahim, who earned BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for his starring roles in “A Prophet” and “The Mauritanian,” is set to play Charles Aznavour, the iconic French-Armenian singer, songwriter and actor who sold more than 180 million records around the world.

Titled “Monsieur Aznavour,” the biopic will be directed by singer-turned-filmmakers Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade (“Patients”), and produced by Jean-Rachid Kallouche’s Kallouche Cinema and Mandarin & Compagnie, the banner behind Francois Ozon’s and Anne Fontaine’s films.

Kallouche, who teamed with Eric and Nicolas Altmayer at Mandarin on Grand Corps Malade and Idir’s previous films, is married to Katia Aznavour, the daughter of the late artist. Filming will kick off in the summer for an estimated delivery in 2024, to mark Aznavour’s centenary.

The movie will chart Aznavour’s rise to stardom in the 1950s and his friendships with many artists, including Edith Piaf, who took...

Exclusive: German distributor-producer Dcm, whose releases have included Spencer, Moonlight and The Artist, is teaming up with Berlin-based producer Flute Film on a film version of Édouard Louis’ acclaimed 2016 novel History Of Violence.

The autobiographical novel, translated into 30 languages, is the second by prodigious French novelist Louis. Based on a real incident, it concerns a violent rape and robbery in Paris on Christmas Eve and the subsequent recounting of events to police and family members.

The German-language film version has a script by Dan Kitrosser, best known for Sundance drama We The Animals. Igor Plischke (Metamorphosis) will direct. Liza Stutzky (System Crashers) is casting director and Saralisa Volm (Silent Forest) is associate producer.

Producers Christopher Zwickler (The Magic Flute) and Dario Suter (Kon-Tiki), who optioned the book rights, will be discussing the project with potential finance and distribution partners at next week’s EFM. Dcm will distribute in Germany and...

Festival to also honour French cinematographer Caroline Champetier with honorary Berlinale Camera.

The Berlinale has added the world premiere of documentary Love To Love You, Donna Summer and a tribute to a century of Disney animation to its upcoming 73rd edition.

The additions complete the lineup for the Berlinale Special sidebar at the festival, set to run February 16-26.

Love To Love You, Donna Summer is co-directed by Roger Ross Williams, Oscar nominated in 2016 for Life, Animated, and US actress Brooklyn Sudano, who is the daughter of Summer and makes her directorial debut with the film.

The documentary will explore...

The 2023 Berlin International Film Festival will honor French cinematographer Caroline Champetier with a Berlinale Camera award for lifetime achievement.

Champetier, who has lensed groundbreaking work for such directors as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Leos Carax, Claude Lanzmann and Margarethe von Trotta, will be presented with the award at this year’s Berlinale on Feb. 23.

The veteran French cinematographer has sat behind the camera on more than 100 feature films and numerous shorts, from the start of her career in the early 1980s with Chantal Akerman’s Toute une nuit (1982) and Jacques Rivette’s Le Pont du Nord (1981), through such acclaimed films as Xavier Beauvois’ Of Gods and Men (2011), as well as von Trotta’s Hannah Arendt (2012) and Carax’s Holy Motors (2012) and Annette (2021).

Holy Motors won Champetier the Silver Frog at the 2012 Camerimage festival, which celebrates cinematographers, and she has received five César nominations, winning once for Of Gods and Men.

Berlinale Adds Disney Tribute Film, Donna Summer Docs To Line-Up

The Berlinale has added Love to Love You, Donna Summer and 100 Years of Disney Animation – A Shorts Celebration to its 73rd edition line-up running February 16-26. Both titles will screen in the Berlinale Special sidebar. Co-directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano’s the Donna Summer film tells the story of the disco star through unpublished film extracts, home video, photographs, artwork, writings, personal audio and other recording. Academy Award winner and Walt Disney Animation Studios President Clark Spencer fronts the Disney film, sharing his favorite shorts from the studios’ 100 years of filmmaking. In other news, the festival has announced it will pay tribute to French cinematographer Caroline Champetier with its Berlinale Camera 2023 award. She has chosen Anne Fontaine’s The Innocents, on which she did the cinematography, for a screening as part of Berlinale Special program.

“Love to Love You, Donna Summer,” a docu biopic of the iconic disco singer, has been added to the lineup of Berlinale Special.

Directed by Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (“Music by Prudence”) and Brooklyn Sudano, the film weaves rich archive of unpublished extracts, home video, photographs, artwork, writings, personal audio and other recordings spanning Summer’s life.

Also joining the Berlinale Special roster is “100 Years of Disney Animation – a Shorts Celebration,” which sees Clark Spencer, the Oscar-winning Walt Disney Animation Studios president, sharing his favorite shorts. Among them are rare gems from the earliest days of animation, from the introduction of sound to Mickey Mouse.

The 73rd edition of the Berlin Film Festival will also pay tribute to renowned cinematographer Caroline Champetier who will receive the Berlinale Camera Award. The prize was created in 1986 to honor personalities and institutions who have made a special contribution to filmmaking.

“With her extraordinary body of work,...

The Lost Patient (Le patient) is an Arte TV thriller directed by Christophe Charrier, starring Txomin Vergez and Clotilde Hesme.

A story that has some potential, but it goes unused.

Premise

Thomas has been in a coma for three years when he wakes up and remembers nothing. His psychologist, Anna, informs him that his family has been murdered and that he is the only survivor of the massacre while his sister Laura is still missing.

Movie Review

This feature is a French thriller produced by Arte TV that does not stand out neither in its cinematography, nor – in its difficult condition of being a TV production – in its story. It reduces what could have been good story to a simplistic, and a not a majorly artistic, endeavor.

Txomin Vergez’s performance is good enough, although not outstanding in this a movie that leaves one somewhat indifferent.

‘The Lost Patient’ is laden with clichés,...

French director Rebecca Zlotowski makes her Venice Film Festival competition debut on Sunday with drama Other People’s Children, casting the often neglected, sometimes maligned figure of the stepmother in a fresh light.

Virginie Efira stars as an attractive teacher in her 40s with a full and happy life. In the backdrop, however, her biological clock is ticking. When she gets involved with a divorced father, she becomes attached to his young daughter.

Efira is joined in the cast by Roschdy Zem as the father; Chiara Mastroianni, in a small role as his ex-wife and the girl’s mother, and documentarian Frederic Wiseman, who makes a guest appearance as a gynaecologist.

Other People’s Children is Zlotowski’s fifth film after Dear Prudence, Grand Central, Planetarium and An Easy Girl. The filmmaker was last in Venice with Planetarium which played Out of Competition in 2016.

Deadline talked to Zlotowski ahead of the premiere in Venice.

No two ways about it: April’s a great month for the Criterion Channel, which (among other things; more in a second) adds two recent favorites. We’re thrilled at the SVOD premiere of Hamaguchi’s entrancing Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, our #3 of 2021, and Bruno Dumont’s lacerating France, featuring Léa Seydoux’s finest performance yet.

Ethan Hawke’s Adventures in Moviegoing runs the gamut from Eagle Pennell’s Last Night at the Alamo to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, while a 14-film John Ford retro (mostly) skips westerns altogether. And no notes on the Delphine Seyrig retro—multiple by Akerman, Ulrike Ottinger, Duras, a smattering of Buñuel, and Seyrig’s own film Be Pretty and Shut Up! That of all things might be the crown jewl.

See the full list of April titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

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3 Bad Men, John Ford, 1926

Aar paar, Guru Dutt,...

If 2021 has been a calvacade of bad decisions, dashed hopes, and warning signs for cinema’s strength, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming has at least buttressed our hopes for something like a better tomorrow. Anyway. The Channel will let us ride out distended (holi)days in the family home with an extensive Alfred Hitchcock series to bring the family together—from the established Rear Window and Vertigo to the (let’s just guess) lesser-seen Downhill and Young and Innocent—Johnnie To’s Throw Down and Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons in their Criterion editions, and some streaming premieres: Ste. Anne, Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over, and The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love.

Special notice to Yvonne Rainer’s brain-expanding Film About a Woman Who . . .—debuting in “Female Gaze: Women Directors + Women Cinematographers,” a series that does as it says on the tin—and a Joseph Cotten retro boasting Ambersons,...