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A mother’s death set the stage for “My Life as a Zucchini,” the heartsore 2016 Swiss stop-motion that landed director Claude Barras an Oscar nomination for best animated feature. Now, the passing of a different maternal figure at the hands of unscrupulous men ignites the filmmaker’s eco-conscious, anti-colonial follow-up “Savages.” When a female orangutan is killed by loggers on the Indonesian island of Borneo, 11-year-old Kéria (Babette De Coster) and her father Mutang (Benoît Poelvoorde) adopt her adorable offspring and name it Oshi. Kéria becomes immediately protective of the young ape.

“Savages” deems those willing to enact such violence against other living creatures as uncivilized brutes, destroying the Earth for money while Indigenous peoples live in accordance with age-old principles of coexistence with nature. A musical number in Disney’s “Pocahontas” contrasted the same notions. Yet, even if departing from a rather obvious, if timely, environmentalist premise, Barras and...

The European Film Academy has revealed the nominations in the animated feature film category of the European Film Awards.

The nominated films are Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow,” Kristina Dufková’s “Living Large,” Claude Barras’

“Savages,” Isabel Herguera’s “Sultana’s Dream,” and Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s “They Shot the Piano Player.”

“Flow” won the main jury and audience awards at Annecy, and the award for original music. It played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.

“Sultana’s Dream” won Annecy’s Contrechamp Award, while “Living Large” won the Contrechamp Jury Award.

“Savages” played in competition at Annecy and also screened at Locarno. Barras was Oscar nominated for “My Life as a Courgette.”

Mariscal and Trueba were Oscar nominated for “Chico & Rita.” Trueba’s live-action drama “Belle Epoque” won an Oscar for best foreign-language film.

The committee that decided on the nominations was comprised of representatives of the European Film Academy and Cartoon,...

As usual, the folks at Cineuropa get the dibs on Cnc’s advance receipt news and today we learn that The Worst Ones (Les Pires) tandem Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret are deep into pre-production and will begin shooting their sophomore feature titled Ma frère which is grammatically incorrect but is slang that means – “it’s my brother, my sister and me.” Originally titled Would You Rather, this is based on the Sundance preemed hybrid web-series of that name (aka Tu Préfères), the filmmaker teamed with Catherine Paillé to pen the project and they re-teamed with young actresses Shirel Nataf and Fanta Kebe – who both appeared in the series.…...

Films about the ecological stakes of contemporary life often center the results of unfettered human consumption. By showing the abuses suffered by the environment, they function as both an urgent warning and a desperate plea. Claude Barras takes a different route in Savages (Sauvages), his incisive and edifying animated feature about an 11-year-old girl trying to protect her land and people from encroaching deforestation.

Premiering at Cannes, Savages focuses on elemental beauty and the dignity of community-driven preservation. It is the latest film from the Swiss director whose last film My Life as a Zucchini premiered at Cannes in 2016 and went on to critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination. As in that movie, Barras does not condescend to or patronize his youngest audience members. Savages, written by Barras and Catherine Paillé in collaboration with Morgan Navarro and Nancy Huston, is uncompromising in its messaging, deceptively spare in its instruction and absolutely gorgeous to look at.

The best part of “Savages” is its opening scene, which says less about the overall quality of Claude Barras’ sophomore feature and more about the strength of the vignette that establishes the stop-motion movie’s world. Against atmospheric music, the quote “The world does not belong to us. We borrow it from our children” flashes on screen, followed by images of a lushly rendered clay forest, brimming with life and energy. An adorable baby orangutan is briefly threatened by a small but deadly snake, before being rescued and cared for by his protective mother. Atop a tree, the mother gently breastfeeds her young son, in an idyllic image that is quickly disrupted by the sound of chainsaws, and abruptly, the tree falls to the ground, revealing a construction site filled with lumber and a factory spewing pollution into the air. The title “Savages” comes on screen against this image, and...

“My Life As a Zucchini” director Claude Barras has set up his latest stop-motion animated feature, “Savages!”

Production company Gebeka International — a Hildegarde-Goodfellas company formed in 2021 — and production, financing and sales studio Anton are behind the project, which will be written by Barras and Catherine Paille (“Magnetic Beasts”). The project will be shopped to buyers in Cannes next week.

“Savages!” follows the emotional journey of a girl, her father and a rescued baby orangutan. The film has a strong environmental and conservationist message, exploring the crisis of the destruction of rainforests.

An official synopsis for the film reads as follows: “In Borneo, at the edge of the tropical forest, Kéria is given a baby orangutan that has been rescued from the palm oil plantation where her father works. At the same time, Kéria’s younger cousin Selaï comes to live with her and her father as he seeks refuge from...

Magnetic Beats director Vincent Maël Cardona with Ed Bahlman (Joy Division - An Ideal For Living EP) and Anne-Katrin Titze: “When I hear the voice of Ian Curtis, still now, I hear the No Future thing.”

Vincent Maël Cardona’s Cannes Film Festival and César Award-winning Magnetic Beats, stars Thimothée Robart (Most Promising Actor Lumière Award-winner) with a first-rate supporting ensemble, including Marie Colomb, Joseph Olivennes, Antoine Pelletier, Philippe Frécon, Brian Powell, Olga Créancier-Werckmeister, Mathilde Bisson, and the director himself.

Philippe Bichon (Thimothée Robart), sound engineer for Radio Warsaw

Remembering Ian Curtis (with Joy Division’s Decades and Warsaw); David Bowie and Brian Eno’s Warszawa; Jon King in Gang of Four (Damaged Goods) and Camera Silens (Réalité); The Undertones (Teenage Kicks), Robert Görl (Dit Mir), a nod to John Peel and Bob Marley; noting The Pop Group and The Slits; Edith Nylon (seen in Philippe Puicouyoul’s La Brune Et Moi), and more,...

Guillaume Brac's film All Hands on Deck is exclusively showing on Mubi in most countries in the series The New Auteurs, as well as the retrospective Summer Light: Films by Guillaume Brac.Just over a year ago, the director of the Cnsad (Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique—the Higher National Conservatoire for Dramatic Art), Claire Lasne-Darcueil, asked me to write a feature-length fiction film for a dozen young actors from the class of 2020. With one proviso: I had to shoot between summer and autumn 2019, so that the film would be finished by the time they graduated.I immediately saw this as an opportunity to paint the fictional portrait of a generation, just like Pascale Ferran did twenty-five years ago with L’âge des possibles, written for a class at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg. Or the filmmakers of two collections, Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge and Les années lycée,...

Although the Directors’ Fortnight section of Cannes is non-competitive, prizes are awarded by its partners. Revealed today, ahead of the closing ceremony this evening, the Europa Cinemas Cannes Label for Best European Film went to Jonas Carpignano’s A Chiara and the Sacd Prize to Magnetic Beats (Les Magnétiques) by Vincent Maël Cardona.

A Chiara is Carpignano’s second time scooping the Europa Cinemas Label. He previously won for 2017’s A Ciambra, the second film in his Calabrian Trilogy. A Chiara will now receive the support of the Europa Cinemas Network, with additional promotion and incentives for exhibitors to extend the film’s run on screen.

Set in Gioia Tauro, Italy, the story of a 15-year-old girl who learns some hard truths about her close-knit family when her father disappears, “reflects a genre that has been extensively covered in cinema but this time from a new perspective,” the jury commented.

Writer-director Jonas Carpignano has scored at Cannes with “A Chiara,” winning the Europa Cinemas Cannes Label nod for best European film at Directors’ Fortnight, the festival’s biggest independent parallel section. Carpignano took the same prize for his previous film, “A Ciambra,” which was exec produced by Martin Scorsese, in 2017.

In the second big Directors’ Fortnight prize announcement, Vincent Maël Cardona’s feature debut “Magnetic Beats (“Les Magnétiques”) won the section’s Sacd Prize, awarded by France’s Writers’ Guild. Cardona’s short, “Anywhere Out of the World,” featured at the 2010’s Cannes Cinefondation student short competition.

“A Chiara” focuses on a family’s 16-year-old daughter and her growing realization that her beloved father may be part of the local criminal organization. Set in what the Variety review describes as the “hardscrabble underside” of the Calabrian city of Gioia Tauro, “A Chiara” delivers “a complex and ultimately realistic picture,” it said.

The American Film Institute has unveiled its lineup of 124 films, adding notable titles including the documentaries “Belushi,” “Citizen Penn” and “Hopper/Welles” and the Albert and Allen Hughes thriller “Dead Presidents.”

AFI Fest, which is going virtual this year without the usual glitzy Hollywood premieres at the Tcl Chinese Theatre, had announced previously that Rachel Brosnahan’s crime drama “I’m Your Woman” had been selected as its opening night title on Oct. 15. The festival also announced last month that it would close Oct. 22 with “My Psychedelic Love Story,” and host the world premieres of Kelly Oxford’s “Pink Skies Ahead” and Angel Kristi Williams’ “Really Love,” in addition to special presentations of Florian Zeller’s “The Father,” Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer’s “Fireball” and Mira Nair’s “A Suitable Boy.”

“Belushi” is directed by R.J. Cutler and features interviews with John Belushi, Jim Belushi, Chevy Chase, Carrie Fisher, Dan Aykroyd and Penny Marshall.

The American Film Institute (AFI) has today announced the full lineup of this year’s AFI Fest, including the World Cinema, New Auteurs, and Documentary sections. These titles, including buzzy festival features like “I Carry You with Me,” “Shadow in the Cloud,” “Jumbo,” “Farewell Amor,” “Wander Darkly,” “Tragic Jungle,” “Sound of Metal,” “Wolfwalkers,” “New Order,” and “Hopper/Welles,” join previously announced films, including Julia Hart’s “I’m Your Woman,” which will open the festival, and Errol Morris’ “My Psychedelic Love Story,” which will close it.

This year’s complete AFI Fest program includes 124 titles of which 53 percent are directed by women, 39 percent are directed by Bipoc, and 17 percent are directed by Lbgtq+.

“AFI Fest is committed to supporting diverse perspectives and new voices in cinema and this year is no different,” said Sarah Harris, Director of Programming, AFI Festivals, in an official statement. “While we wish we were able to be together in Hollywood,...

Guillaume Brac’s film walks away with the Grand Prize at the 34th edition of the Normandy festival dedicated to romantic cinema, the first public event to be held post Covid-19. The first public film gathering to be held in France since the end of nationwide lockdown, the 34th Cabourg Film Festival, Journées Romantiques will close tomorrow in the Norman city after three days of screenings in Normandy and Ciné Plage cinemas. The various juries, meanwhile, have already delivered their verdicts, with the panel in charge of the feature film competition, presided over by actor Benoît Magimel, awarding the 2020 Grand Prize to the hugely entertaining, intelligent and refreshing À l’abordage by Guillaume Brac. Unveiled in the Berlinale’s Panorama line-up, chiefly starring Éric Nantchouang, Salif Cissé, Édouard Sulpice and Asma Messaoudene, and co-written by the director in league with Catherine Paillé, the film tells of the impromptu holiday and pie-in-the-sky love.

, Guillaume Brac’s wise, witty “À l’abordage” is an optimistic portrait of gentle disappointment, the kind a youthful generation has to experience before growing up a little bit. It’s also a delightful showcase for the talents of its diverse, fresh-faced cast, whose own stories and experiences contributed to Brac and co-screenwriter Catherine Paillé’s loose-limbed narrative. That improvisational approach lends “À l’abordage” an amiably meandering rhythm while still bringing its breezy journey to a close with everyone in a subtly but profoundly different place to where they started.

The title, which translates somewhere between “All aboard!” and “Attack!”, was supposedly the battle-cry of French pirates when they drew up alongside an enemy ship. Not that there’s any bloodthirstiness here; instead the words conjure up a kids’ game of make-believe, as though these attractive, benignly muddled twentysomethings are play-acting their bravado as surely as kids sporting plastic eyepatches waving cardboard cutlasses around.

Respectively coming off red-hot Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight titles in big winner Les Combattants and Alleluia, actresses Adèle Haenel and Lola Dueñas are reteaming (they both appeared in Katell Quillévéré’s Suzanne) on Léa Fehner’s sophomore film which begins lensing next month. According to Cineuropa, Marion Bouvarel, Marc Barbé and the filmmaker’s own father and sister in François and Inès Fehner are also joining the project. Les Ogres digs into the filmmaker’s family background - François Fehner knows a thing or two about pitching up a tent. Bus Films’ Philippe Liégeois is producing.

Gist: Written by Fehner, Catherine Paillé and Brigitte Sy, this revolves around an aging troupe belonging to a traveling theatre company.

Worth Noting: Fehner’s Venice Film Fest selected debut film Silent Voice (see trailer below), won the prestigious Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film.

Do We Care?: Moving away from prison walls...

Jean Denizot‘s feature debut La Belle Vie will have it’s world premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival, which runs from 28 August 28th to 7 September 7th. Today, we’re here to share the first image and to give you the most important details from the film which is based on a true story that shocked France. We definitely recommend you to take a look. Denizot directed this real-life drama from a script he co-wrote with Frédérique Moreau and Catherine Paillé, which revolves around two brothers and their father who spent ten years on the run, hiding along France’s autoroutes. Ten years before, when their...

Click to read original and full article: Venice 2013: La Belle Vie by Jean Denizot on http://www.filmofilia.com...

Col*Coa is winding down, but you can still catch a few stellar films and see the award winners for free Monday, April 22, 2013.

Award Screenings at 6:00 pm: The evening will start with the rerun of two awarded films in the Renoir and Truffaut Theaters at the DGA. Films will be announced on Sunday April 21 on the Col*Coa website, on Facebook, Twitter and on the Col•Coa info line (310) 289 5346. Free admission on a First comes First Served basis. No RSVP needed.

You can stay and also see the Closing Night Films at 8:30 pm at the DGA. Reservations needed. Those are both North American Premieres of two very anticipated French films. The thriller Moebus by Eric Rochant will show for free as will the comedy Like Brothers by Hugo Gélin.

Being among the French filmmakers (and I saw way too few of the films) gave me such a surprising sense of renewal - again because of this upcoming generation. After seeing City of Lights, the short by Pascal Tessaud which preceded the classic Jacques Demy film Bay of Angels starring a platinum blond gambling-addicted Jeanne Moreau in Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo in 1963, we spoke at length about what is called "The New Vibe". City of Lights stars a deeply quiet young man from "les banlieus", the notorious "suburbs" surrounding Paris where the international mix of young (and old) proletariat population is invisible to the rest of France except when the anger erupts into riots. This first generation has the French education but not the money or jobs and it hurts. They have picked up the cameras and with no money are creating films which express their lives in many ways like the new Latin American filmmakers or the new Eastern European filmmakers. Tessaud gave me an entire education in the hour we talked and I will share this in time. For now, aside from his wonderfuly trenchant film which played like a feature, which captured the Paris this young generation recognizes as The City of Lights - dancing, the kitchen of a very upscale restaurant, the dreary streets filled with construction, there is another example of The New Vibe, started by Rachid Djaïdani (a story in himself) the film Hold Back (Rengaine) leads the pack of the 20-some-odd new films of The New Vibe. It is produced by Anne-Dominque Toussaint (Les Films des Tournelles) whose films are too numerous to name but include my favorite The Hedgehog which I wrote about at Col*Coa two years ago, Col*Coa's current Cycling with Moliere, 2002's Respiro and many many others. Hold Back took 9 years to make and most of the team was unpaid. The New Vibe makes films without the aid of the French system of funding; it is more guerilla-style, not New Wave, not Dogma but New Vibe. Hold Back took Cannes by storm when it showed last year in Directors Fortnight and went on to New Directors/ New Films in New York. The classic story of a Catholic and a Muslim who want to marry but whose family objects, this rendition the Juliet has a brother who marches throughout Paris to alert her 39 other brothers that she wants to marry outside her cultural and religious traditions. "This fresh debut mixes fable, plucky social commentary - particularly about France's Arab community - and inventive comic setpieces" (Col*Coa)

Hold Back (Rengaine) (Isa: Pathe) goes beyond the funny but "establishmant" film Intouchable which played here last year. It is the exact opposite of such films as Sister or even Aliyah (Isa: Rezo) which played here this year and also in Directors Fortnight last year. Aliyah is about a young French Jewish man who must make his last drug sale in order to escape his brother's destructive behavior. He escapes by immigrating to Israel. These films are made by filmmakers within the French establishment and describe a proletariat existence which exists in their bourgeois minds. They lack a certain "verite" which can only be captured by one who knows viscerally what such marginal existence is.

At the opposite end of the contemporary spectrum of films today, a real establishment film is You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet by Alain Renais (you have to be a Renais fan to love it who was so avant-garde in his day). Those old New Wave films one could see here stand out in beautiful contrast to today's New Vibe: Renais' Stavisky or the 1963 film The Fire Within (Le feu follet) by Louis Malle again starring the beautiful Jeanne Moreau. I missed them both to my regret. When I miss a film I always tell myself I can see it when it's released or on DVD or Mubi, but rarely do I get to see it. Instead I can only read about it as here written up by Beth Hanna on Indiewire blog ToH. The Fire Within was part of Wes Anderson's choices, one of the various showcases of Col*Coa. Says Hanna: "Anderson's taste is impeccable: He has selected Louis Malle's 1963 lyrical depression drama The Fire Within." It was made after the classic Elevator to the Gallows (1958) which Miles Davis scored and which also starred the young Jeanne Moreau. She also could be seen her in Col*Coa in the classic 1963 Jacques Demy-directed Bay of Angels.

Col*Coa really offered something for everyone this year. Another of my favorite film genres, the Jewish film, was represented by Aliyah and The Dandelions (Du Vent dans mes mollets) (Isa: Gaumont), Stavisky, and It Happened in St. Tropez (Isa: Pathe), a classic French comedy -- though a bit dark and yet still comedic, about romance, love and marriage switching between generations in a neurotic, comfortably wealthy Jewish family. The Dandelions was, according to my friend Debra Levine, a writer on culture including film and dance, (see her blog artsmeme), "darling, so touching, so well made, so creative ... i really liked it. Went into that rabbit hole of little girls together ... Barbie doll play. Crazy creative play. As looney as kids can be."

Ian Birnie's favorite film was Becoming Traviata. Greg Katchel's favorite originally was Rendez-vous à Kiruna by Anna Novion, but when I saw him later in the festival his favorite was Cycling with Moliere (Alceste a bicyclette) (Isa: Pathe), again produced by Anne-Dominque Toussaint and directed by Philippe Le Guay who directed one of my favorites, The Women on the 6th Floor. Greg also liked Three Worlds though it was a bit "schematic" in depicting the clash of different cultures which were also shown in Hold Back.

Of the few films I was able to see, the most interesting was Augustine by Alice Winokur. It is the French response to David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method and the British film Hysteria. All three were about the turn of the century concern of psychologists or doctors with female hysteria. This one concerned Jean-Martin Charcot and the neurologist's belief that hysteria was a neurological disease and he used hypnosis to get at its roots, whild in A Dangerous Method it was seen by Freud and Jung as a mental disorder and in Hysteria by Tanya Wexler (Tiff 2011) in which Dr. Mortimer Granville devises the invention of the first vibrator in the name of medical science.

Take a look at Indiewire's own article here for more on Los Angeles's greatest French attraction, the second largest French film festival in the world.

Several American distributors will present their films at Col•Coa before their U.S. release: Kino Lorber – You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, co-written and directed by Alain Resnais (Focus on a Filmmaker); Mpi Media – Thérèse, the last film of director/co-writer Claude Miller starring Audrey Tautou; Cohen Media Group – In the House, written and directed by François Ozon and The Attack, co-written and directed by Ziad Doueiri; Distrib Films for two documentaries: Becoming Traviata and The Invisibles; Film Movement for two thrillers: Aliyah and Three Worlds; The Weinstein Company - Populaire.

Below you can see the international sales agents for the current features showing.

11.6 / 11.6 (Isa: Wild Bunch)

Directed by: Philippe Godeau

Written by: Philippe Godeau, Agnès De Sacy

A Few Hours Of Spring / Quelques heures de printemps (Isa: Rezo)

Directed by: Stéphane Brizé ♀

Written by: Stéphane Brizé, Florence Vignon

Cast: Vincent Lindon, Hélène Vincent, Emmanuelle Seigner, Olivier Perrier

Aliyah/Alyah ✡ (Isa: Rezo, U.S.: Film Movement

Directed by: Élie Wajeman

Written by: Élie Wajeman, Gaëlle Macé

Armed Hands / Mains armées (Isa: Films Distribution)

Directed by: Pierre Jolivet

Written by: Pierre Jolivet, Simon Michaël

Augustine / Augustine (Isa: Kinology, U.S.: Music Box)

Directed by: Alice Winocour ♀

Written by: Alice Winocour

Aya Of Yop City / Aya de Yopougon (Isa: TF1)

Directed by: Clément Oubrerie, Marguerite Abouet ♀

Written by: Marguerite Abouet

Bay Of Angels / La Baie des anges (U.S.: Criterion)

Directed by: Jacques Demy

Written by: Jacques Demy

Becoming Traviata /Traviata et nous (Isa: Films Boutique, U.S. Distrib Films and Cinema Guild)

Directed by: Philippe Béziat

Written by: Philippe Béziat

Cycling With MOLIÈRE / Alceste à bicyclette (Isa: Pathe)

Directed by: Philippe Le Guay

Written by: Philippe Le Guay, based on an original idea by Fabrice Luchini and Philippe Le Guay

Fly Me To The Moon / Un plan parfait (Isa: Kinology)

Directed By: Pascal Chaumeil

Written By: Laurent Zeitoun, Yoann Gromb, Philippe Mechelen

Haute Cuisine / Les Saveurs du palais (Isa: Wild Bunch, U.S.: The Weinstein Company)

Directed by: Christian Vincent

Written by: Etienne Comar & Christian Vincent, based on the life of Danièle Mazet-Delpeuch

Hidden Beauties / Mille-Feuille (Isa: Other Angle Pictures)

Directed by: Nouri Bouzid

Written by: Nouri Bouzid, Joumène Limam

Hold Back / Rengaine (Isa: Pathe)

Directed by: Rachid Djaïdani

Written by: Rachid Djaïdani

In The House / Dans la maison (Isa: Wild Bunch, U.S.: Cohen Media Group)

Directed by: François Ozon

Written by: François Ozon

It Happened In Saint-tropez / Des Gens qui s’embrassent (Isa: Pathe)

Directed by: Danièle Thompson ♀

Written by: Danièle Thompson, Christopher Thompson

Jappeloup/ Jappeloup (Isa: Pathe)

Directed by: Christian Duguay

Written by: Guillaume Canet

Le Grand Soir / Le grand soir (Isa: Funny Balloons)

Directed by: Benoît Delépine and Gustave de Kervern

Written by: Benoît Delépine and Gustave de Kervern

Little Lion / Comme un Lion (Isa: Pyramide)

Directed by: Samuel Collardey

Written by: Catherine Paillé, Nadège Trebal, Samuel Collardey

Moon Man / Jean de la lune (Isa: Le Pacte)

Directed By: Stephan Schesch

Written By: Stephan Schesch, Ralph Martin. Based on the book by: Tomi Ungerer

Populaire / Populaire (Isa: Wild Bunch, U.S.: TWC)

Directed By: Régis Roinsard

Written By: Régis Roinsard, Daniel Presley, Romain Compingt

Rendezvous In Kiruna / Rendez-vous à Kiruna (Isa: Pyramide)

Directed by: Anne Novion ♀

Written by: Olivier Massart, Anne Novion, Pierre Novion

Sons Of The Wind / Les Fils du vent (Isa: Wide)

Directed by: Bruno Le Jean

Written by: Bruno Le Jean

Stavisky / Stavisky (1974) (Isa: StudioCanal)

Directed by: Alain Resnais

Written by: Jorge Semprún

The Attack / L’Attentat

France, Belgium, Lebanon, Qatar, 2013

Directed by: Ziad Doueiri (Isa: Wild Bunch, U.S.: Cohen Media Group)

The BRONTË Sisters / Les Soeurs Brontë (Isa: Gaumont, U.S.: Cohen Media Group)

Directed by: André Téchiné

Written by: André Téchiné, Jean Gruault, Pascal Bonitzer

The Dandelions / Du Vent dans mes mollets ✡

Directed By: Carine Tardieu ♀

Written By: Carine Tardieu, Raphaële Moussafir, Olivier Beer

The Fire Within / Le Feu Follet (1963) (Isa: Pyramide, U.S.: Janus Films)

Directed by: Louis Malle

Written by: Louis Malle

The Invisibles / Les Invisibles (Isa: Doc & Film, U.S. Distrib Films))

Directed By: Sébastien Lifshitz

The Man Who Laughs/ L’Homme qui rit (Isa: EuropaCorps)

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Améris

Written by: Jean-Pierre Améris , Guillaume Laurant

THÉRÈSE / Thérèse Desqueyroux (Isa: TF1, U.S.: Mpi)

Directed by: Claude Miller

Written by: Claude Miller, Natalie Carter

Three Worlds / Trois mondes (Isa: Pyramide, U.S.: Film Movement)

Directed by: Catherine Corsini ♀

Written by: Catherine Corsini, Benoît Graffin

To Our Loves / À nos amours (1983) (U.S. Janus)

Directed By: Maurice Pialat

Written By: Arlette Langmann, Maurice Pialat

True Friends / Amitiés sincères (Isa: Snd Groupe 6)

Directed By: Stéphan Archinard, François Prévôt-Leygonie

Written By: Stéphan Archinard, François Prévôt-Leygonie, Marie-Pierre Huster

Welcome To Argentina / Mariage à Mendoza (Isa: Kinology)

Directed By: Édouard Deluc

Written By: Anaïs Carpita, Édouard Deluc, Thomas Lilti, Philippe Rebbot

What’S In A Name / Le prénom (Isa: Pathe, U.S. Under The Milky Way)

Directed by: Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthieu Delaporte

Written by: Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthieu Delaporte

You Ain’T Seen Nothin’ Yet / Vous n’avez encore rien vu (Isa: StudioCanal, U.S.: Kino Lorber)

Directed By: Alain Resnais

Written By: Alain Resnais, Laurent Herbiet...

A new big batch of films have been added to the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival line-up, and while there aren't a lot of big premieres in the bunch, there's a lot to catch up with for those of you (and us) who didn't attend Tiff 2011, Sundance 2012, etc. etc.

Highlights for us include Sarah Polley's sophomore directorial effort "Take This Waltz," starring Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams, Julie Delpy's "2 Days In New York," starring herself and Chris Rock in a sequel to "2 Days in Paris," Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's "Chicken With Plums," their directorial follow-up to the very excellent 2007 animated film "Persepolis," Lynn Shelton's "Your Sister's Sister" starring Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt and Mark Duplass, and "Lola Versus," Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister Jones' follow-up to the celebrated 2009 micro-budgeted indie "Breaking Upwards" starring Lister Jones herself alongside Greta Gerwig, Joel Kinnaman (AMC's "The Killing," the new "RoboCop"), Bill Pullman,...

The Tribeca Film Festival announced its Spotlight and Cinemania programs today, including Morgan Spurlock’s latest documentary, Mansome, period drama Cheerful Weather for the Wedding with Like Crazy’s Felicity Jones (right), and Struck By Lightning, written by Glee’s Chris Colfer. “It was important that we head into Tribeca’s second decade highlighting projects that were attuned to the pulse of our cultural climate,” said director of programming Genna Terranova, in a release. “That said, both consciousness and levity play a prominent role in this year’s selection. We are also eager to introduce audiences to a group of...

#24. Love and Bruises Director: Lou YeWriter(s): Catherine Paille and Liu Jie Falin Producers: Kristina Larsen and Vincent Maraval Distributor: Rights Available. The Gist: Formerly titled Bitch, this is an adaptation from Jie Liu-Falin’s autobiographical novel, Mathieu says, if she were a prostitute, for sure Flower would make a lot of money. He says she’s a born bitch. Any profession other than a prostitute would indeed be a waste of her gifts. Maybe he’s had few numerable women in his life, even though he boasts himself a veteran of love affairs; or maybe he just says it as a compliment to her, even though his flattering always goes too far, but no matter how, she can never be a prostitute.....(more) Cast: Tahar Rahim, Jalil Lespert, Lika Minamoto, Sifan Shao and Corinne Yam List Worthy Reasons...: If we thought that Tahar Rahim was the...

#99. Une Vie Meilleure Director: Cédric KahnWriter(s): Catherine Paille and KahnProducers: UnknownDistributor: Rights Available. The Gist: This centers around Yann (Guillaume Canet), a man who will try everything to save her marriage and her family's debt....(more) Cast: Guillaume Canet and Leila Bekhti. List Worthy Reasons...: I wouldn't be surprised if Kahn's last two films draw blanks for U.S cinephiles -- as both L'avion (2005) and Les regrets (2009) failed to be picked up for distribution. The French are specialists in relationship dramas of the draining realistic kind, and in many ways Kahn has a knack for memorable opposite sex matched screen pairings such as Roberto Succo and 2004 film Red Lights - one of my favorite films of the 00's. I'm liking the idea of what the pairing of Guillaume Canet and Leila Bekhti could potentially bring to the big screen. Release Date/Status?: Filming begins this month,...

At the beginning of every month, Ioncinema.com's "Tracking Shot" features a handful of projects that are moments away from lensing and in the same token, we feel are worth signaling out. We ring in the new year with nine titles going into production this month that are worth pointing out. Among the projects that were originally slated for January but are slightly pushed back we have Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton's Will starring Paul Rudd Zach Galifianakis, the new Stephen Daldry film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Polanski's Carnage. This January can officially be called the "Abi Morgan" month as the scribe has not one but two projects that'll be lensed: Steve McQueen’s sex addiction drama Shame, and The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In U.S productions we have Joe Carnahan's The Grey - which we feel is oddly...

One more nugget of French film production news from this report, Roberto Succo and Red Lights filmmaker Cedric Kahn is setting up his next project for the month after the holidays. Reported a couple of days ago, Guillaume Canet and Leila Bekhti are toplining Une Vie Meilleure which certainly addresses many of the concerns that couples of currently facing - credit card debt, late home payments et al.  Gist: Co-scripted by Cedric Kahn and Catherine Paille, this centers around Yann (Guillaume Canet), a man who will try everything to save her marriage and her family's debt. Worth Noting: Kahn's last two films haven't been picked up for U.S distribution, this includes his 2009 pic Les Regrets - a romantic drama starring Yvan Attal and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi which was showcased at the Rome, London, and Palm Springs Film Fests. Do We Care?: We wish that Cedric Kahn was somewhat...