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Newen Connect has added a trio of French comediesto its EFM slate:Cycle Of Time, No Signal!andThe Family Road.

Vinciane Millereau’s Cycle Of Time stars Elsa Zylberstein, Didier Bourdon, Aurore Clément and Dider Flamand and is about a 1950s French family catapulted into 2025 due to a freak accident with their washing machine, forcing them to face a new world dominated by technology and adapt to a new reality.

Olivier Kahn produces for Ugc which is releasing the film in France in October.

Edouard Pluvieux’s No Signal! is about two young step-siblings spending the weekend with their parents in...

After her break-out female empowerment portraits in the Cannes Un Certain Regard selected Papicha (2019) and Houria (2022), Franco-Algerian filmmaker Mounia Meddour is moving into WWII terrain with a currently untitled project loosely based on a play by Jean-Philippe Daguerre. Variety reports that Camille Razat, Elsa Zylberstein and Meddour muse Lyna Khoudri will topline the project (one top male lead will be announced prior to moving into production for May this year. Pablo Pauly (who add a bit part in The French Dispatch) also joins the project which is produced by Daï Daï Films’ Vanessa Djian. A Cannes 2026 showcase is not impossible.…...

“Emily in Paris” star Camille Razat, Elsa Zylberstein (“Simone: Woman of the Century”) and Lyna Khoudri (“The Three Musketeers”) will lead a WW2-set romance drama directed by “Papicha” helmer Mounia Meddour.

The movie is produced by Vanessa Djian at Daï Daï Films, a Newen Studios company, and co-produced by Genevieve Lemal at Scope in Belgium, and Bidibul in Luxembourg. Eric Jollant is executive producing. Wild Bunch Distribution will handle the theatrical release in France.

The untitled feature, whose exact plot remains under wrap, is loosely based on a play by Jean-Philippe Daguerre and was penned by Joanne Giger (“Le milieu de l’horizon”). It revolves around a love story unfolding against the backdrop of the liberation of Paris in 1944 which marked the end of the Nazi occupation of the French capital.

Djian had previously worked on “Farewell, Mr. Haffmann,” another movie set during WW2, in Nazi-occupied Paris. A male actor...

The Paris prosecutors office has requested a one-year suspended prison sentence against French actor and director Nicolas Bedos, following a hearing on charges of sexual assault and sexual harassment while under the influence of alcohol.

Cannes regular Bedos – whose recent credits include La Belle Epoque, Oss 177: From Africa With Love and Mascarade – was tried on three allegations.

The first complaint was lodged in June 2023, by a 25-year-old woman, who accused Bedos of approaching her in a club and putting his hand on her crotch.

According to her account, he insulted her when she repelled his advances, and his behavior resulted in him being escorted from the club by a security guard.

The 45-year-old actor was reported to have told investigators at the time that if the gesture had happened it was “accidental”.

After a court hearing was set for September 2024, two more accusations came to light, one for sexual assault,...

Five years ago, French writer-director Claude Lelouch returned, for the second time, to the site of his greatest career success with “The Best Years of a Life,” an autumnal sequel to his trend-setting 1966 romance “A Man and a Woman” that felt elegiac in multiple senses — not least since it turned out to be the final onscreen appearance for both its stars, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée. Anyone who assumed it might be Lelouch’s sign-off, however, was quite mistaken. He’s made three features since, the latest of which, “Finally,” seems fashioned from its title down as a sort of career summation from the 86-year-old filmmaker, but not portentously so. A peculiar, weightless confection that bounces antically between narratives, perspectives, periods and varying grips on reality, it treats even grave mortal matters with near-cartoonish buoyancy.

Premiering out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, accompanying a career-achievement award presentation to Lelouch,...

Final preparations are underway for the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Paralympics on Wednesday.

It will take place one month after the tumultuous 2024 Olympics opening ceremony which divided spectators at home and internationally for its provocative take on French history and culture.

Like its predecessor, which unfolded on the River Seine on July 26, the Paralympics opening will break with tradition by taking place outside of a sports stadium and will also be overseen by Olympics opening and closing ceremonies artistic director Thomas Jolly.

The celebrated theatre director received death threats in the wake of the Olympics opening, following suggestions that a scene featuring drag queens was a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, which he denied.

At home, the ceremony was mainly applauded and it kicked off one of the most successful summer Olympics in more than a decade.

Entitled ‘Paradox’, the two-part 2024 Paralympics inauguration will see 4,400 Paralympians...

The film adaptation of popular comic strip “Natacha (Almost) Air Hostess” boasts an all-star cast.

The cast includes Camille Lou (“Anthracite”), Vincent Dedienne (“We Can Be Heroes”), Fabrice Luchini (“The Empire”), Didier Bourdon (“Cocorico), Elsa Zylberstein (“Coup de Chance”), Isabelle Adjani (“Wingwomen”) and Baptiste Lecaplain (“Meet the Leroys”).

The film is loosely based on the comic strip of the same name created by screenwriter François Walthéry, which was published by Editions Dupuy, and which comprises 23 albums and has sold more than five million copies.

The story follows Natacha, who, since she was a child, has dreamed of becoming an air hostess so that she can break free from the constraints of an age where women are expected to remain at home. Just as her dream is on the verge of becoming a reality, she finds herself involved against her will on an adventure on the trail of a bunch of...

Promenade, a new film from John Jencks, has begun production in Brighton this week. More on the film below.

We’re hearing rumbles that a new British film is heading our way sooner rather than later from director John Jencks. The Hippopotamus director is helming Promenade, a Brighton set whodunnit, next and the project has just started filming, we hear.

The announcement comes with an ambiguous tagline: “50 Cast, 12 Stories, 1 Plot. No Heroes.” Colour us intrigued.

Here’s a synopsis for the film: In Brighton on the South coast of England, sharpened by the sting of sea spray, and mellowed by numinous light, a tight-knit community of oddballs and heart-felts live together in a tatty old mansion, the Fletcher Apartments. When a golden feather, the priceless antique mascot of the building, unexpectedly disappears, the residents have a mystery to solve. Will they find the talisman that previously bound them together, or will their community,...

Principal photography is underway on location in Brighton on John Jencks’ UK ensemble comedy Promenade.

The UK feature is written by David Wigram, and produced by Apostasy producer Marcie MacLellan. The film is fully financed by Jencks’ The Electric Shadow Company, and produced in association with MacLellan’s company Frank and Lively. It is one of the first feature film productions to benefit from the new UK tax credit, with qualifying films able to receive tax relief of to 40%.

With a 50-strong cast, the film unites 12 different stories in a community of oddballs in a tatty old mansion on the south coast of England.

Principal photography is underway on location in Brighton on John Jencks’ UK ensemble comedy Promenade.

The UK feature is written by David Wigram, and produced by Apostasy producer Marcie MacLellan. The film is fully financed by Jencks’ The Electric Shadow Company, and produced in association with MacLellan’s company Frank and Lively. It is one of the first feature film productions to benefit from the new UK tax credit, with qualifying films able to receive tax relief of to 40%.

With a 50-strong cast, the film unites 12 different stories in a community of oddballs in a tatty old mansion on the south coast of England.

Ms Novak’s (Mia Wasikowska) students Fred (Luke Barker), Ragna (Florence Baker), Helen (Gwen Currant), Elsa (Ksenia Devriendt), and Ben (Samuel D Anderson) in Jessica Hausner’s bewitching Club Zero

In the second installment with Jessica Hausner on Club Zero (co-written with Geraldine Bajard) and scored by Markus Binder (European Film Award winner), starring Mia Wasikowska (as Conscious Eating instructor Ms Novak), we discussed her longtime collaborators, costume designer Tanja Hausner and cinematographer Martin Gschlacht plus Sidse Babett Knudsen and Peter & The Wolf.

Jessica Hausner on using Peter & The Wolf in Club Zero: “It’s a very common fairytale and we found out that it’s really very well known …” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

The parents of the students are played by Elsa Zylberstein (Simone Veil in Olivier Dahan’s all-embracing portrait Simone: Woman Of The Century) Mathieu Demy, Camilla Rutherford...

Controversial director Woody Allen’s 50th film “Coup de Chance” is coming to U.S. theaters. MPI Media Group will release the movie on April 5 for North American markets, with a digital/VOD release on April 12.

The film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, drew both protests and an enthusiastic two-and-a-half minute standing ovation.

U.S. theatrical distributors have generally avoided Allen since the #MeToo movement resurfaced Dylan Farrow’s allegations of child molestation against him, and actors like Rebecca Hall, Timothée Chalamet and Greta Gerwig have expressed regret over working with him.

“Coup de Chance,” which translates to “stroke of luck,” stars Valerie Lemercier, Niels Schneider, Lou de Laage, Elsa Zylberstein and Melvil Poupaud in a tale of murder and intrigue that follows a beautiful couple living in Paris whose lives change when a former flame re-enters their orbit.

Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman...

"Don't you get it? It's a question of faith." Film Movement has revealed an official trailer for Club Zero, an unsettling dark comedy thriller from provocative Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner. This premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival to mixed reviews (here's ours defending it), because it is a very interesting film that dares to provoke a reaction from the audience by confronting them with freaky blind faith. Mia Wasikowska stars as Miss Novak, a young teacher who takes a job at an elite school and forms a strong bond with five students who join her group called "Club Zero", challenging them to participate in "conscious eating". Combining a pitch-black comedic sensibility with elements of body horror, Club Zero satirizes the contemporary inclinations toward myopic insularity and blind faith brought on by anxieties regarding food, consumerism and environmental catastrophe. Though I think it's digging even deeper than that getting at religion,...

There’s a new diet trend with sinister intentions, courtesy of Jessica Hausner’s latest dark comedy “Club Zero.”

The film, which premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, stars Mia Wasikowska as a nefarious teacher who encourages her students to stop eating altogether. The reason? Other than weight loss and pseudo-environmental concerns, it’s a tactic to gain new cult members.

“Club Zero” competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes before going on to become a Best Picture nominee at both the Sitges and Munich International Film Festivals.

The official synopsis reads: “At an international boarding school, an unassuming yet rigorous Miss Novak (Wasikowska) joins the teaching staff to instruct a new class on ‘conscious eating.’ Her impressionable teenage students each have their own reasons for joining the class – to improve fitness, reduce their carbon footprint, or get extra credit. Although early lectures focus on mindful consumption, Miss Novak...

Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard and Jacques Audiard are among 500 French cinema professionals to have signed an open letter in support of a silent march for peace in Paris this Sunday.

The initiative – created in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict and its ongoing reverberations around the world – is being spearheaded by the newly launched Une Autre Voix (Another Voice) collective.

“This fratricidal war affects us all, and regardless of our reasons or affinities on each side of the wall, we want it to cease and that both peoples finally live in peace,” reads the letter.

“This is why we are organizing a silent, united, humanist and peaceful march that will open with a single long white banner. No political claims nor slogans. White flags, white handkerchiefs are welcome.”

Belgian-Moroccan actress Lubna Azabal presides over the Une Autre Voix collective which also features French...

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...

Other signatories include Isabelle Adjani, Jacques Audiard and Michel Hazanavicius.

More than 500 leading figures from the French film and cultural industries have signed a letter calling for a silent march on Sunday (November 19) in Paris in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Marion Cotillard, Melanie Laurent, Isabelle Adjani, Nathalie Baye, Jacques Audiard, Christophe Honore and Michel Hazanavicius are among the actors, filmmakers, agents and producers who have called for “a silent march of solidarity, humanism and peace”. The initiative was organised by Le Collectif Une Autre Voix (Another Voice) and spearheaded by the group’s President Lubna Azabal, a Belgian...

Tana Gilbert’s ‘Malqueridas’ the other key winner.

Luna Carmoon’s debut feature Hoard led the winners of the 38th Venice Critics’ Week, taking three prizes including the audience award.

The UK film, about a young girl living with her hoarder mother who then reconsiders her youth when a teenager, also won the prize for most innovative film. Lead actress Saura Lightfoot Leon shared a special mention for the grand prize with actress Ariane Labed for The Vourdalak.

Scroll down for the full list of winners

The main grand prize went to Tana Gilbert’s Malqueridas, selected by a jury of Belgian musician Baloji,...

Olivier Dahan: “I didn’t want to make a film about Simone Veil as we know her in France.”

Simone: Woman Of The Century director, writer, editor Olivier Dahan (La Vie En Rose with Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf and Grace de Monaco with Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly) is no stranger to depicting influential women. His all-embracing portrait of Simone Veil stars Elsa Zylberstein as Veil from 1968 till 2006, and Rebecca Marder (Arnaud Desplechin’s Tromperie and François Ozon’s Mon Crime) from 1942 through 1967.

Olivier Dahan with Anne-Katrin Titze on young people not knowing Simone Veil, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, and László Nemes’s Son Of Saul: “I was really trying to connect with those young people and this woman, of course.”

In Bernard-Henri Lévy’s homage to Simone Veil he writes: “The world, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard said a century ago,...

While promoting his 50th – and quite possibly, last — movie Coup de Chance at the Venice Film Festival, Woody Allen weighed in on cancel culture, the #MeToo Movement, and whether any woman has ever complained about his behavior on set.

“I said years ago that I should have been a poster boy [for the #MeToo movement] and they got all excited about that,” Allen, 87, told Variety in an interview before Sunday’s premiere of the French language film that he wrote and directed. “I’ve made 50 films. I’ve always had very good parts for women, always had women in the crew, always paid them the exact same amount that we paid men, worked with hundreds of actresses, and never, ever had a single complaint from any of them at any point. Not a single one ever said, ‘Working with him, he was mean or he was harassing.’ That’s just not been an issue.

Woody Allen’s Coup de Chance premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Monday. The film, which was directed and written by Allen himself, received a five-minute ovation from the audience.

Coup de Chance centers around Fanny and Jean who look like the ideal married couple—they’re both professionally accomplished, they live in a gorgeous apartment in an exclusive neighborhood of Paris, and they seem to be in love just as much as they were when they first met. But when Fanny accidentally bumps into Alain, a former high school classmate, she’s swept off her feet. They soon see each other again and get closer and closer.

Woody Allen stunned by the enthusiastic response to Coup de Chance at #Venezia80 which received a 5-minute ovation pic.twitter.com/vjRd2FSYLV

— Deadline Hollywood (@Deadline) September 4, 2023

Allen’s fiftieth movie stars Lou de Laâge, Valérie Lemercier, Melvil Poupaud, Niels Schneider,...

Elsa Zylberstein, the French César-winning actor and producer whose popular movie “Simone: Woman of the Century” recently opened in the U.S., is preparing a biopic movie of fashion icon Christian Dior.

The film is being penned by Julien Teisseire (“The Hookup Plan”) and is being developed by Zylberstein’s banner Sonia Films and Odile McDonald (“Ransom”).

Zylberstein, who is in Venice to participate in the Impact Jury along with Nadine Labaki (“Costa Brava Lebanon”) and Yalitza Aparicio (“Roma”), among others, told Variety that the film will open in 1947, in Paris, after World War II. Spanning a decade, the film sees Dior forging an empire alongside Raymonde Zehnacker, and falling madly in love with a much younger man, Jacques Benita.

“Christian Dior was a fiercely private man so people know very little about him and he was not a flamboyant character like other fashion designers or popular cultural icons, but he was no less fascinating,...

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,...

In Bernard-Henri Lévy’s homage to Simone Veil he writes: “The world, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard said a century ago, could be reduced to a series of copyrights. Einstein’s relativity. Descartes’s doubt. Bergson’s laughter. Dante’s hell. Today: Simone Veil’s Europe.” Olivier Dahan’s all-embracing portrait, Simone: Woman of the Century, stars Elsa Zylberstein as Veil from 1968 till 2006, and Rebecca Marder (Arnaud Desplechin’s Tromperie and François Ozon’s Mon Crime) from 1942 through 1967.

Auschwitz survivor, Health Minister of France, magistrate, mother, member of the Constitutional Council, advocate for the rights of women and prison reform, and the first President of the European Parliament, Simone Veil’s importance for the 20th and 21st century cannot be overstated. Director, writer, editor...

Elsa Zylberstein with Anne-Katrin Titze on Simone Veil: “She was really someone fighting for people’s dignity. I didn’t know it was that strong. My models were Meryl Streep, obviously, or Gary Oldman as Churchill (in Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour). So I didn’t want to play her, I wanted to become her.”

Olivier Dahan’s all-embracing portrait, Simone: Woman Of The Century, stars Elsa Zylberstein as Simone Veil from 1968 till 2006, and Rebecca Marder (Arnaud Desplechin’s Tromperie and François Ozon’s Mon Crime) from 1942 through 1967.

Auschwitz survivor, Health Minister of France (she put an end to the criminalization of abortion), magistrate, mother, member of the Constitutional Council, advocate for the rights of women and prison reform, and the first President of the European Parliament, Simone Veil’s importance for the 20th and 21st century cannot be overstated. Dahan (La Vie En Rose with Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf...

In 2008, French politician Simone Veil became only the sixth woman ever inducted into the Académie Française, an august institution tasked with the regulation of the French language. As a newly minted “immortal” — the unofficial name given to the Académie’s 40 members — she was presented with a sword that bore three engravings: the motto of France, that of Europe (“Unis dans le diversité“) and her Auschwitz prisoner number, which remained tattooed on her arm until her death in 2017. The sword glints briefly in Olivier Dahan’s “Simone: Woman of the Century” and though its symbolism is apt for such a crusading figure, it also reflects the film’s shortcomings: this is a reverential, ceremonial biopic content merely to inscribe Veil’s achievements across the surface of history, ornamenting a remarkable legacy, rather than exploring it.

Dahan works to the same fragmentary, triumph-and-tragedy template he employed in “La Vie en Rose,” for...

The Venice Film Festival is rolling out a juried impact award that will mark the first time a major film festival has awarded a prize focused solely on impact.

Impact campaigns are crafted around documentaries and some narrative films that have strong social or political messages that can inspire action among audiences and the industry at large. While the field has been around for the last decade, Venice’s Collateral Impact Award, which was created in partnership with ThinkFilm Impact Production, is the first time an impact-specific award is being presented at an A-list festival.

“This is an industry first — it’s not been seen anywhere,” ThinkFilm Impact Production founder and CEO Danielle Turkov Wilson told Variety. “I’ve been working at Cannes at the industry level for years, but to see something like this at the competition level is wonderful.”

Venice organizers said the award will honor a film...

The 50th movie from controversial filmmaker Woody Allen is a thriller that was shot in French and will be making its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, which is set to run from August 30th through September 9th. The film is called Coup de Chance (or Stroke of Luck), and an English-subtitled trailer can be seen in the embed above.

Allen has described Coup de Chance as a “poisonous romantic thriller” and spiritual successor to his popular 2005 psychological thriller Match Point. This one has the following synopsis: Fanny and Jean have everything of the ideal couple: fulfilled in their professional life, they live in a magnificent apartment in the beautiful districts of Paris and seem to be in love as on the first day. But when Fanny crosses, by chance, Alain, a former high school friend, she is immediately capsized. They see each other again very quickly and get closer and closer.

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...

"Why are they after me like that?" "They can't stand what you represent." Goldwyn Films has released an official US trailer for Simone: Woman of the Century, a French biopic about a woman named Simone Veil. She passed away in 2017 at the age of 89, but during her time she was a French magistrate, Holocaust survivor, and politician who served as Health Minister, and President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. "One of the prominent women in France in the 20th Century." The film explores her life, as a leading politician, human rights campaigner, and feminist -- through a series of non-chronological memories. Similar to the Bob Dylan film I'm Not There; this one is from the director of La Vie en Rose. "An intimate and epic portrait of an extraordinary woman who eminently challenged and transformed her era." The French film stars Elsa Zylberstein as Simone Veil,...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has unveiled the trailer for “Simone: Woman of the Century,” a biopic of Simone Veil, an Auschwitz survivor who became health minister of France and championed the 1975 law that legalized abortion in France.

Directed by Olivier Dahan, best-known for his Oscar-winning Edith Piaf biopic “La Vie en Rose,” “Simone” boasts powerful performances by Elsa Zylberstein and Rebecca Marder. The key cast is completed by Elodie Bouchez, Sylvie Testud and Olivier Gourmet.

The film was a box office hit in France, where it was released by Warner Bros and ranked as 2022’s third highest-grossing French-language hit with over 2.5 million tickets sold. Samuel Goldwyn Films is planning to release the film in U.S. theaters, opening in New York and Los Angeles on Aug. 18, followed by a wider rollout.

Since starring in “Simone,” Zylberstein has set up two production banners in France and the U.S. and is actively...

Roughly a month before Venice Film Festival’s 2023 lineup announcement, the buzz around the competition is heating up with several star-studded films by heavyweight directors in the mix, including Pablo Larrain (“El Conde”), Michael Mann (“Ferrari“), Sofia Coppola (“Priscilla“), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) and Michel Franco (“Memory”).

These titles are believed to have been officially invited to the Lido in competition, according to sources.

Larraín’s follow-up to “Spencer,” “El Conde” depicts dictator Augusto Pinochet as a Vampire with a cast led by Chilean star Alfredo Castro.

Another film with a genre element, Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” is a surrealist science-fiction romance based on an adaptation of Alasdair Grey’s novel of the same name, and starring Emma Stone as Belle Baxter, a Frankenstein-like woman who is brought back to life after her brain is replaced with that of her unborn child. Stone stars opposite Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Christopher Abbott and Margaret Qualley.

Girls Supports Girls, the French film sorority launched by producer Vanessa Djian and publicist Karolyne Leibovici, made its debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival with the backing of Orange, in association with Kering. A flurry of French female talent, notably “Simone” actress Elsa Zylberstein and “Houria” director Mounia Meddour, took part in the networking luncheon which was hosted on the rooftop terrasse of Kering’s Women in Motion event at the Majestic hotel.

Djian, whose production banner Daïdaï Films recently became part of Newen Group, and Leibovici, the founder of A&k communication, launched Girls Supports Girls four years ago to connect and create opportunities for female producers, actresses, executives and diverse talent coming from the film, TV and media industries.

Previous events were organized in Paris, at the prestigious restaurant Le Fouquet’s, and during Canneseries in Cannes. Each event kicks off with guests standing up and introducing themselves.

“Club Zero,” a teen-cult thriller from director Jessica Hausner, may have Cannes Film Festival attendees thinking twice about ordering that second croissant on the Croisette.

The movie, which preaches the art of “conscious eating” and will definitely force viewers to consider the way they consume food, may be one of the more polarizing titles to debut at this year’s festival. Still, it earned a five-minute standing ovation at Monday night’s premiere.

In the film, Mia Wasikowska, a favorite from “Jane Eyre” and “Alice in Wonderland,” stars as a nutrition teacher from hell at an elite prep school. It all starts innocently, as teen cults are wont to do, with Miss Novak instructing her students that eating less is healthy, for themselves and for the environment. By the time the other educators and parents take note, an unthinkable reality has already started to unfold.

The film prompted at least...

Claude Lelouch, the Oscar-winning director of “A Man and a Woman,” is getting ready to direct “Finalement…,” his next film which he says will be a sort of sequel to his BAFTA-nominated film “Happy New Year” and “L’aventure, l’aventure.” The lighthearted movie will reteam Lelouch with Metropolitan FilmExport which is co-producing with Lelouch’s banner Les Films 13, and will distribute in France.

Scored by popular French singer Ibrahim Maalouf, “Finalement…” will boast a large ensemble cast of French stars, including Kad Merad (“Baron Noir”), Elsa Zylberstein (“Simone”), Sandrine Bonnaire, Raphael Mezrahi, Michel Boujenah and Barbara Pravi.

Merad will play a powerful lawyer who sees his life take an unexpected turn after a health issue removes his ability to lie and forces him to speak without any filter. Merad’s character embarks on a road trip across France, from Paris to the Normandie, to the Mont St Michel, Avignon...

Studiocanal has signed a deal with Metropolitan Filmexport for worldwide rights to the entire film catalog of acclaimed French director Claude Lelouch.

The deal, announced at the Cannes Film Market on Saturday, includes more than 40 films, among them such French classics as A Man and a Woman (1966) — winner of the 1966 Palme d’Or, as well as two Oscars, for best international film and best original screenplay — Live for Life (1967), Love Is a Funny Thing (1969), The Crook (1970), Money Money Money (1972), Happy New Year (1973), Bolero (1981), Itinerary of a Spoilt Child (1988) and Les Misérables (1995).

Studiocanal has been handling French TV rights for the Lelouch catalog for the past seven years. The new deal will give the group exclusive worldwide distribution rights to the director’s vast catalog, as well as SVOD, free-on-demand and AVOD rights in France. Metropolitan will continue to distribute Lelouch’s films in theaters, on video and through transactional video-on-demand (Tvod) in France.

Jessica Hausner’s English-language film stars Mia Wasikowska, Sidse Babett Knudsen and Elsa Zylberstein.

Philippe Bober’s Coproduction Office has added new members to Club Zero, Jessica Hausner’s buzzy sixth feature in Competition here at Cannes.

The English-speaking drama set at an elite boarding school continues its global sales sweep, adding Neue Visionen in Germany, Sphere Films in Canada, Aerofilms in Czech Republic and Slovakia, Folkets Bio in Sweden, Another World in Norway, Obala in Bosnia, McF in Former Yugoslavia, A Plus in Bulgaria, Arthouse Traffic in Ukraine, Trt Sinema in Turkey, Shaw in Singapore, Sahamongkol in Thailand and Aardwolf for airline rights.

The company has boarded star-powered French features ‘Take Me Home’ and ’Under The Rainbow’.

Newen Connect, the international sales arm of the Tfi Group’s Newen Studios, has snapped up rights to star-powered French features Take Me Home and Under the Rainbow and will kick off sales in Cannes. Both will be released in France by Ugc Distribution.

Take Me Home is the first feature from directing duo Karine Blanc and Michel Tavares and stars Clovis Cornillac, alongside Eyé Haïdara in a story about a struggling country singer who moves with her children to a mountain village and turns the...

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...

Woody Allen’s “Coup de Chance,” the controversial filmmaker’s 50th movie, has found a French distributor. Metropolitan FilmExport, one of country’s biggest independent distributors, has come on board to release the movie in France.

The release date has not yet been set, but sources close to the film say it could world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

Metropolitan FilmExport has never handled a movie directed by Allen before as it typically focuses on commercial U.S. movies such as the “Hunger Games” franchise and “Evil Dead Rises.”

While Allen’s movies have also always been widely popular in France, his previous film “Rifkin’s Festival” sold under 100,000 tickets for Apollo Films after world premiering at the San Sebastian Festival. It was the director’s worst B.O. performance in France. Budgeted in the $20-million range, “Coup de Chance” was a pricey acquisition that not many French distributors could afford to gamble on.

Film also stars Mathieu Demy, Elsa Zylberstein and Sidse Babett Knudsen.

Coproduction Office has added members to Club Zero with multiple buyers snapping up Jessica Hausner’s psychological drama at the EFM.

The ensemble film set at an elite boarding school sold to Bac Films in France, Klockworx in Japan, Academy Two in Italy, Karma in Spain, September Films in Benelux, Camera in Denmark, Praesens Film in Switzerland, Bio Paradis in Iceland, Alambique in Portugal, Ama Films in Greece, New Horizons in Poland, Vertigo in Hungary, Independenta in Romania, Filmstop Inspiration in the Baltic countries and Front Row in the Middle East.

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...

I did not successfully lobby for Woody Allen Summer Project 2022 placing on our list of most-anticipated 2023 films. Rather than get into any reasoning for or arguments against the artist’s exile, we might all focus on the art: yet another work about somebody committing a horrible crime and finding small moral struggle with their decision.

I jest, though Allen’s hyped his next as a “poisonous romantic thriller” with explicit reference to Match Point, and today it’s known the picture––his first French-language production, titled Coup de Chance (Stroke of Luck en Anglais)––will make some appearance at the Berlinale’s EFM this month. Attached to the news is a first still featuring stars Lou De Laâge and Niels Schneider, the explicit reference to Coup as a policier (à la Le Cercle Rouge or Touchez pas au grisbi), and this small summary from the director:

“Coup de Chance is a contemporary story of romance,...

Woody Allen might still be persona non grata for many in the U.S., but international distributors will likely be clamoring to see his new film, Coup de Chance, which will be presented to buyers at the upcoming European Film Market.

WestEnd Films, in collaboration with Gravier Productions, will kick off sales for the film in Berlin next week.

Allen’s 50th feature marks the director’s French-language debut and features an ensemble cast of local stars, including Lou De Laâge (The Innocents), Valérie Lemercier (Aline), Melvil Poupaud (Summer of 85) and Niels Schneider (Heartbeats).

In a statement, Allen called the the movie a “story of romance, passion and violence set in contemporary Paris. Shot all over the city and a little bit in the countryside, it evolves around a romance between two young people who are old friends and devolves into marital infidelity and ultimately crime.”

The movie reunites Allen...

Exclusive: Woody Allen’s latest film is heading to the EFM market in Berlin with WestEnd Films, we can reveal.

To date, plot details have been kept under wraps on Allen’s 50th film but we can reveal the contemporary romantic thriller, previously known as Wasp 22, will chart the story of two young people whose bond leads to marital infidelity and ultimately crime. Above is a first look image.

Allen’s first French-language movie is a “policier” (as the French call it) in the genre of Match Point and was shot across Paris. ‘Coup de chance’ roughly translates into English as ‘stroke of luck’.

Cast includes Lou de Laage, Melvil Poupaud, Valerie Lemercier, Niels Schneider, Elsa Zylberstein, Bárbara Goenaga, Grégory Gadebois, Anne Loiret, Sara Martins, Guillaume de Tonquédec and Arnaud Viard.

Allen’s longtime producing partner Letty Aronson is producing for Gravier Productions. Also aboard are Allen regulars such as veteran Dp Vittorio Storaro,...

’Rise’ and ’Pacifiction’ are also strong contenders.

Louis Garrel’s crime-infused romantic comedy The Innocent and Dominik Moll’s investigative drama The Night Of The 12th are the frontrunners for France’s 48th annual Cesar Awards with 11 and 10 nominations respectively.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Cédric Klapisch’s dance drama Rise and Albert Serra’s political thriller Pacifiction follow with nine nominations each.

The titles are all selected in the best film category alongside Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s Forever Young.

Despite a strong showing from French female directors at both the box office and festivals, the best director category is all-male this year.

The director’s portrait of feminist icon and Holocaust survivor Simone Veil is still going strong after 14 weeks in theatres.

Hollywood superheroes may dominate the top spots at the French box office, but a local-language film about a feminist politician and Holocaust survivor has managed to woo audiences to become one of the leading French films of the year.

Olivier Dahan’s Simone: A Woman of the Century, released by Warner Bros. France, has sold more than 2.4 million tickets to date and is now the number two French film year on year - behind local comedy Serial (Bad) Weddings 3. It...

Other Angle, the French sales and co-production company founded by Olivier Albou and Laurence Schonberg, is looking to forge stronger ties in North America.

The company, which is celebrating its 15th edition of the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris with six market screenings, is preparing the second edition of an L.A.-set French comedy event scheduled for April 1 at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills. The first edition of the French Comedy Club, which screened popular titles such as Philippe Lacheau’s “Super-hero malgré lui” and Kev Adams-starring “Retirement Home” (pictured) with English subtitles, was a success, said Albou, who began his career in Los Angeles and notably worked at Warner Bros.

“These movies are not often sold to U.S. distributors who tend to favor movies that play at festivals and have awards potential, but judging by the enthusiasm of the people who filled the theater during our event,...