News

Clement Cogitore’s “Sons Of Ramses” (“Goutte d’Or”) will have its world premiere in Cannes as a special screening in the Critics’ Week strand of the festival.

The film follows Ramses, a skilful clairvoyant in the multicultural Parisian district of La Goutte d’Or. When a gang of fearless kids start terrorizing the locals, the balance of his thriving business and of the whole neighborhood is disturbed. Until one day, when Ramses has a real vision.

The cast includes Karim Leklou (“The World is Yours”), Malik Zidi (“Oxygen”), Elsa Wolliaston (“Victoria”), Jawad Outouia, Elyes Dkhissi, Yilin Yang (“Three Times Nothing”) and Loubna Abidar (“Much Loved”).

After studying at Le Fresnoy (France’s National Studio for Contemporary Arts), Cogitore developed his artistic practice between the spaces of cinema and contemporary art. In 2015, his first feature film, “The Wakhan Front” was selected at the Cannes Critics’ Week, where it won the...

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired pair of French movies, “The Strange Case of Jacky Caillou” and “Madgala,” which will world premiere in the Cannes sidebar, Acid.

“The Strange Case of Jacky Caillou” is the feature debut of Lucas Delangle, who previously worked with Claire Simon on “The Competition,” among other films. Set in a small village in the French Alps, the film follows a young man, Jacky Caillou, who lives with his loving grandmother Gisele, a magnetic healer.

Produced by Charles Philippe and Lucile Ric at Les films du Clan, the film stars newcomer Thomas Parigi and rising French talent Lou Lampros. Arizona Distribution will release the film in France later this year.

“Lucas Delangle is a new French voice to be discovered; he is already very mature and plays with cinema narration and genre,” said Martin Gondre and Charles Bin, Best Friend Forever co-founders. “His first film...

Parallel section focuses on independent features yet to secure French distribution and first films.

France’s Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema (Acid) has unveiled the nine features it will showcase in its parallel Cannes section, running May 18 to 26.

Seven titles will world premiere including French director Damien Manivel’s fourth feature Magdala. Inspired by the final days of the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene, it stars his long-time muse Jamaica-born, France-based choreographer Elsa Wolliaston.

Manivel’s last film, Takara, The Night I Swam, co-directed with Kohei Igarashi, premiered in Venice Horizons in 2017.

Further French selections include Martin Jauvat’s Grand Paris,...

Les Arcs Works in Progress and Co-production Village events took place online from January 20 to 22,

French director Damien Manivel’s upcoming feature Magdala, inspired by the final days of Mary Magdalene, has scooped the €50,000 Eurimages Lab Project Award at the Work in Progress event of Les Arcs Film Festival.

The post-production showcase is a key prong of Les Arcs’ professional Industry Village and usually takes place within the framework of the festival’s physical event in the French Alps in December.

It moved online this year due to the pandemic, presenting 17 upcoming films in post-production to some 550 registered film professionals,...

Les Arcs Film Festival’s Industry Village, one of the many events that switched to virtual due to the pandemic, has unveiled its award-winning projects, which include Delphine Girard’s “Most Alive,” Damien Manivel’s “Magdala” and Sabine Ehrl’s “Paradise Bleeding.”

The event has a stellar track record when it comes to unveiling projects that go on to premiere at prestigious festivals and win awards. Recent alumni include Alex Camilleri’s Malta-set movie “Luzzu,” which will compete at this year’s Sundance, as well as Charlene Favier’s “Slalom,” which was part of Cannes 2020’s Official Selection, and just won the Lumieres Award in France for best female newcomer award (for Noée Abita).

“Paradise Bleeding” was one of the eight projects pitched as part of the Talent Village, a development workshop and platform for emerging talent launched by Les Arcs in 2018. The project won the T Port-Award from a jury comprising producer Florence Gastaud,...

Damien Manivel's fourth feature film, Isadora's Children, is as lucid and delicate as the three that came before it, but with its premiere in the competition of the Locarno Film Festival, and the French filmmaker's subsequent win of the Best Director award, it should prove to be the film that will bring him greater international exposure. Isadora's Children simply but beautifully explores two simultaneous ideas: that of the transmission of art from person to person, in this case from a dancer to a choreographer and performer to an audience member; and that of the art itself, a semi-autobiographical piece composed by preeminent American dancer Isadora Duncan about a mother's mourning her dead child. In the first part, effectively a solo, Agathe Bonitzer plays a lithe young dancer reading about Duncan's life, her personal tragedy, and her unique notation system for choreography. She slowly learns this dance, that of an older woman,...

Manivel’s fourth feature is a dance-themed drama.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Isadora’s Children, Damien Manivel’s dance-themed drama which premieres in the international competition at Locarno Film Festival (August 7 - 17).

In the film, following the death of her two children in April 1913, legendary dancer Isadora Duncan creates a solo dance called ‘Mother’, in which a mother cradles her child one last time before letting him go. A century later, four women encounter the heartrending dance.

Isadora’s Children is produced by Manivel and Martin Bertier for Mld Films. It stars Agathe Bonitzer, Manon Carpentier,...

This year’s Locarno Film Festival (Aug 7 -17) lineup includes Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and Joseph Gordon-Levitt plane thriller 7500, which gets its world premiere at the Swiss showcase. Scroll down for major category lineups.

The 72nd edition of the festival marks the first for incoming artistic director Lili Hinstein who has taken over from Carlo Chatrian. As ever, there is a strong contingent of European and Asian arthouse movies and the Piazza Grande section includes a handful of titles with more mainstream appeal, such as Tarantino’s Cannes pic Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, which rolls out globally in August.

Alongside Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, the open air Piazza Grande screenings will include the world premieres of German-produced hijack thriller-drama 7500, Carice Van Houten starrer Instinct, UK comedy actor Simon Bird’s directorial debut Days Of The Bagnold Summer, French director Stéphane Demoustier...