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Canadian director Matthew Rankin’s Persian and French-language drama Universal Language has won the inaugural Audience Award of Directors’ Fortnight.

This is the first official prize launched by Directors’ Fortnight which does not have a jury. The €7,500 cash award, is also the first audience award to be launched in Cannes, across the Official Selection and the parallel sections.

It is being sponsored by the Chantal Akerman Foundation, which preserves the legacy of the director who retained strong ties with Directors’ Fortnight throughout her career, after screening breakthrough film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce – 1080 Brussel in the section in 1975.

Described as taking place “somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg”, Universal Language intertwines multiple characters.

Gradeschoolers Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to claim it, while Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists through the monuments and historic sites of Winnipeg and Matthew quits...

Shortly before last year’s Cannes Film Festival, director Sophie Fillières attended a cast and crew screening of “Anatomy of a Fall.” The filmmaker had a supporting role in the film, playing the deceased’s sister, and she soon celebrated her work’s Palme d’Or win from afar, hanging back in Paris, where she was preparing to shoot her seventh feature, “This Life of Mine.”

The five-week production kicked off in late June, running smoothly and wrapping on the last day of July. The next day, Fillières checked into the hospital; in less than a month, she was gone.

If hardly offsetting the shock and hurt of her passing, Fillières leaves behind a remarkable legacy, as her final film will open this year’s Director’s Fortnight while a generation of French talents now looks to her with awe.

“Seeing Sophie’s work for the first time gave me...

“Yvonne Moreau is both original and very popular,” said Indie Sales.

Paris-based Indie Sales is heading to Cannes with The Jolly Forgers in tow, kicking off sales at the market for Yolande Moreau’s latest ensemble drama.

Moreau directs and stars in the feel-good feature as a woman who returns to her hometown to a house she inherited and takes in a merry band of new tenants, three men who brighten up her daily life and help her rekindle the flame of her long-lost true love. Sergi Lopez and Gregory Gadebois co-star in the film produced by Julie Salvador of...

Kiberlain will be in Cannes this year as president of the Caméra d’Or jury for first films.

Indie Sales has boarded French film-maker Sophie Fillières’s high-concept comedy When Margaux Meets Margaux starring Sandrine Kiberlain as a woman in her mid-40s who meets another woman called Margaux, who is actually her younger self.

French actress Kiberlain, seen most recently in André Téchiné’s Being 17, will be in Cannes this year as president of the Caméra d’Or jury for first films.

Set against the backdrops of the Alpine resort of Les Arcs, Paris and Lyon, the picture revolves around two women both called Margaux, played by Kiberlain and Agathe Bonitzer.

Although 20-years apart in age, troubling details and similarities seem to link the two women. They discover they share more than the same name, with life changing consequences for both of them.

It marks a sixth feature for Fillière after the 2014 marriage comedy If You...

Exclusive: Shoval [pictured] was mentored by Iñárritu on the set of The Revenant.

Oscar-winning director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu has boarded Israeli film-maker Tom Shoval’s second film Shake Your Cares Away as one of the film’s producers. The film revolves around Alma, a wealthy heiress with a crazy philanthropic streak who takes her charitable work to unconventional extremes when she moves to Israel from Paris.

French actress Bérénice Bejo has signed to play Alma and is studying Hebrew in preparation for the film, which is due to shoot between Paris and Israel in the second half of 2017. “I told her I am searching to cast the soul of my character, Alma, and to my good luck I found it in her,” said Shoval. “I can’t wait for our collaboration.”

Mexican film-maker Iñárritu mentored Shoval as part of the Rolex Mentors and Protégés Arts Initiative. He ended up supporting Shoval and his brother Dan as they co-wrote...

Exclusive: Shoval [pictured] was mentored by Inarritu on the set of The Revenant.

Oscar-winning director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has boarded Israeli film-maker Tom Shoval’s second film Shake Your Cares Away as one of the film’s producers. The film revolves around Alma, a wealthy heiress with a crazy philanthropic streak who takes her charitable work to unconventional extremes when she moves to Israel from Paris.

French actress Bérénice Bejo has signed to play Alma and is studying Hebrew in preparation for the film, which is due to shoot between Paris and Israel in the second half of 2017. “I told her I am searching to cast the soul of my character, Alma, and to my good luck I found it in her,” said Shoval. “I can’t wait for our collaboration.”

Mexican film-maker Inarritu mentored Shoval as part of the Rolex Mentors and Protégés Arts Initiative. He ended up supporting Shoval and his brother Dan as they co-wrote...

Berlin-based One Two Films is making its first foray into Stateside production as the co-producer on Jennifer Fox’s fiction feature debut The Tale, which begins shooting at locations in Louisiana today (Oct 20).

The $3.5m investigative thriller is being produced by Blackbird Films and A Luminous Mind Productions, with Lawrence Inglee and Laura Rister as producers and Oren Moverman serving as executive producer.

The autobiographical story has a cast headed up by Laura Dern, with Ellen Burstyn, Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki and Jason Ritter.

One Two Films’ Sol Bondy - who was a Screen Future Leader at Cannes 2013 - told ScreenDaily he had been introduced to The Tale as a project when he and Fox took part in the 2013/14 edition of the Transatlantic Film Partners programme.

He subsequently brought public broadcaster Zdf and Arte to the project which is being handled internationally by Mongrel International and is set to wrap principal photography in December.

From Helsinki...

Neil Armfield.s Holding the Man, Simon Stone.s The Daughter, Jeremy Sims. Last Cab to Darwin and Jen Peedom.s feature doc Sherpa will have their world premieres at the Sydney Film Festival.

The festival program unveiled today includes 33 world premieres (including 22 shorts) and 135 Australian premieres (with 18 shorts) among 251 titles from 68 countries.

Among the other premieres will be Daina Reid.s The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment's. ABC-tv miniseries starring Oliver Jackson Cohen and Sarah Snook, and three Oz docs, Marc Eberle.s The Cambodian Space Project — Not Easy Rock .n. Roll, Steve Thomas. Freedom Stories and Lisa Nicol.s Wide Open Sky.

Festival director Nashen Moodley boasted. this year.s event will be far larger than 2014's when 183 films from 47 countries were screened, including 15 world premieres. The expansion is possible in part due to the addition of two new screening venues in Newtown and Liverpool.

As previously announced, Brendan Cowell...

French director Martin Provost is re-teaming with "Seraphine" star Yolande Moreau for the heartfelt drama "The Long Falling." This comes after "Seraphine" won best film at last year's Cesar awards. The story tells of a woman who offs her husband after years of physical abuse. She forms a friendship with a widowed woman who she meets while on the run. Marc Abdelnour wrote the screenplay for the $6.1 million-budgeted film produced by F Comme Films' Julie Salvador. Luc Besson's EuropaCorp-owned Roissy Films is handling international sales. Other titles that Roissy has are Zabou Breitman's "No and Me," "Si tu meurs, je te tue!" (If You Die, I'll Kill You!") by Hiner Saleem and Thierry Benisti's "A Bottle in the Sea of Gaza."...

I somehow missed the first mention of helmer Martin Provost and award-winning actress Yolande Moreau looking to quickly reunite after the triumphant turn in the Cesar-winning 2008 film, Séraphine. The twosome will now re-team on Où Va la Nuit (Where the Night Goes) with production set to take place after Easter in various locations, including Brussels. - I somehow missed the first mention of helmer Martin Provost and award-winning actress Yolande Moreau looking to quickly reunite after the triumphant turn in the Cesar-winning 2008 film, Séraphine. The twosome will now re-team on Où Va la Nuit (Where the Night Goes) with production set to take place after Easter in various locations, including Brussels. Arthur Dupont, Edith Scob, Laurent Capelluto, Valentijn Dhaenens and Jan Hammenecker have been added as the supporting cast. Julie Salvador (executive producer on Les herbes folles) produces. Adapted by Provost (who switches up several items in...