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Matt Dillon (“The House That Jack Built”) and Charlotte Gainsbourg are attached to star in Fred Garson’s “An Ocean Apart,” a period drama about the romantic affair between French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and American writer Nelson Algren.

The film is being developed by French producer Olivier Delbosc at Curiosa Films, which is presenting Xavier Giannoli’s Venice competition player “Lost Illusions” and Yvan Attal’s “Les choses humaines,” and Matthew Gledhill at Wheelhouse Prods. Dillon is at Venice with “Land of Dreams,” screening in the Horizons section, and Gainsbourg stars in “Les choses humaines,” unspooling out of competition.

Set during the late 1940s in Paris and Chicago, “An Ocean Apart” was written by Ron Riley in collaboration with Garson and Claire Barré. The film charts the fiery yet mostly letter-based relationship between Beauvoir and Algren that spanned from 1947 to 1964. Algren, who was Jewish, is best known for the...

10 of the selected projects are live-action films, with one animation and one documentary.

Cinekid Script Lab, the European initiative for the development of children’s films, has picked 12 feature projects for its sixth edition, featuring more than 50% women across the selected teams.

The six-month script workshop will begin during the Cinekid for Professionals event in Amsterdam (Oct 21-25) and runs through to the Berlinale in February 2020.

A total of 10 of the 17 writers on the list are women, while nine of the 19 producers are female. There are no directors attached at this stage.

Alongside new talents, Cinekid welcomes back a few regulars,...

Generations apart, but connected by chutzpah and talent, Mel Brooks and Kate McKinnon have two of the most signature voices in comedy. Now, try to identify their characters in “Leap!,” the latest mediocrity for children from the Weinstein Company.

Either they were both so ashamed by the humorless script that they masked their voices well, or it’s impossible to imagine either one in the movie’s shockingly lifeless version of 1880s Paris. Directed by Eric Summer and Éric Warin from a script by Summer, Laurent Zeitoun, and Carol Noble, this filmmaking-by-committee approach ensured “Leap!” got tugged in a million different directions — and none of them good. The movie is weighed down by too many secondary characters, which only serve to dissipate their flickering charms. No one in the film, even our heroine, gets more than a hint of backstory as the single-minded plot careens toward its predictable conclusion.

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Chicago – One of the rites of passage for most girls in the U.S.(and elsewhere, I presume) is ballet lessons. Usually it lasts for a very short time, but some girls-to-women keep pursuing it, and may even become prima ballerinas. A new animated film named “Leap!” is dedicated to that spirit.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

The headline is a lyric quote from “A Chorus Line” and their magnificent song “At the Ballet,” about the longing and destiny of dance. There is a bit of that in “Leap!,” but mostly it deals with the usual plucky-orphan-sticking-it-to-the-man and becoming a ballerina against all odds. And since it works at a kid’s level, the story is nothing to write home about. But the choreography is the thing in this one, as the animators used the exquisite movements of ballerinas and reproduced them in cartoon characters. For every little girl who has taken the dance stage,...

MaryAnn’s quick take… Cheesy Euro ballerina-porn cartoon is full of dated animation, cringeworthy attempts at humor, bizarre anachronisms, and a terrible message for little kids. I’m “biast” (pro): I’m desperate for movies about girls and women

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Ballet. It’s not that difficult, Anyone can dance ballet — I’m talking world-class ballet, not gradeschoolers twirling in tutus — as long as they really really want to. Everyone knows this.

That’s why it’s so easy for Felicie (the voice of Elle Fanning: The Beguiled, Live by Night), a tween orphan in late 1880s France who runs away to a Disney-esque Parisland, to lie and cheat her way into a ballet school at the prestigious Paris Opera, get cast in a production of The Nutcracker, and perform without benefit of a single rehearsal.

Two orphans with a dream give it their all in the latest trailer for The Weinstein Company's upcoming animated film Leap! Directed by Éric Summer and Éric Warin and written by Carol Noble, Eric Summer and Laurent Zeitoun, Leap! follows 11-year-old orphan Félicie (Elle Fanning), who dreams of becoming a dancer in Paris, and her best friend Victor (Nat Wolff), an imaginative, but exhausting boy with a passion for creating has a dream of his own, to become a famous inventor…...