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Quick LinksBrady Corbet's Ominous and Unsettling Historical DramaCorbet Continues His Sensational Hollywood Takeover With 'The Brutalist'

Brady Corbet is steadily establishing himself as one of the silver screen's most innovative and refreshing filmmakers, with the talented director taking audiences all across the world by storm with his powerful, critically acclaimed epic period drama The Brutalist.Before he was the recipient of the Best Direction Golden Globe and had his gripping picture nominated for a whopping 10 Academy Awards, Corbet had made his directorial debut back in 2015 with the foreboding historical drama The Childhood of a Leader.

In the deeply unsettling film, Corbet chronicles the early life of a future fascist leader in the immediate aftermath of World War I, as the young boy begins to exhibit violent and downright disturbing behavior while being raised by his American diplomat father and German mother in the French countryside. The Childhood of a Leader...

Update: Unifrance responds to sales outfit quitting French cinema promotion group.

Leading French sales company Wild Bunch has quit the country’s state-backed French cinema export and promotional body Unifrance in protest at the appointment of Serge Toubiana (pictured, top) as its new president.

It is the first time in Unifrance’s near 70-year history that a company of Wild Bunch’s magnitude has quit the body.

Unifrance announced on Thursday that former Cinématheque Française chief Serge Toubiana had been elected to the role by its 48-member executive committee, beating out producers Yves Marmion and Pierre-Ange Le Pogam who had also put themselves forward as candidates.

The appointment was greeted with surprise by many in the French film sales and production community who said Toubiana lacked the export and sales experience to take on such a role, even if they respected his track record as a journalist and at the helm of the Cinématheque.

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Exclusive: Metrodome strikes for Venice debut starring Berenice Bejo and Robert Pattinson.

Metrodome Distribution has acquired Brady Corbet’s mystery-drama The Childhood Of A Leader for all UK and Ireland rights from Protagonist Pictures.

Metrodome is due to release theatrically in August 2016.

The deal was negotiated between George Hamilton for Protagonist Pictures and Giles Edwards, head of acquisitions for Metrodome.

Written by actor-director Corbet (Simon Killer) and Mona Fastvold (The Sleepwalker), the Venice debut stars Berenice Bejo (The Artist), Robert Pattinson (The Twilight Saga), Stacy Martin (Nymphomaniac), Liam Cunningham (Game Of Thrones) and Yolande Moreau (Amelie).

Producers are Chris Coen (Funny Games), Ron Curtis, Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Helena Danielsson and Istvan Major.

In The Childhood Of A Leader an American family settles into the French countryside at the end of the First World War, where the father (Liam Cunningham) is involved in the peace negotiations around the Treaty of Versailles. His wife (Bérénice Bejo...

If included, it would count as one of the rare Venice preemed North American premiere debuts and uncommon 35mm treats at the fest. After doubling up at the Venice Film Festival with the Luigi de Laurentiis” award for a Debut Film and the Best Director Horizons award, The Childhood of a Leader‘s Brady Corbet recently picked up another Best Director award at the Lisbon & Estoril Film Fest. A regular figure at the festival as an actor in both short and features from Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin era up until Antonio Campos’ Simon Killer, Corbet also had his short debut (2009’s Protect You + Me.) and writing credits on Mona Fastvold’s The Sleepwalker (2014) and last year’s short Rabbit from Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre all premiere at the festival. The available acquisitions title has had its share of extremely convinced supporters and even the detractors acknowledge the genius in Corbet’s debut oeuvre.

The Lesson by co-directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov was the big winner at this year’s Sofia International Film Festival in Bulgaria.

The duo’s feature debut became the second Bulgarian feature in Siff’s 19-year history to receive the international jury’s Grand Prix after Dragomir Sholev’s Shelter in 2011.

The Lesson also picked up the Audience Award, the Fipresci International Critics’ Prize and the award for the Best Bulgarian Feature Film.

Accepting the award, Valchanov pointed to the importance of the Sofia Meetings where The Lesson had originally been pitched and said that this event should be ¨an example¨ to the Bulgarian state to develop a long-term and sustainable film policy for the future.

The sentiment was echoed by international jury president Stephan Komanderev (The Judgement) when he presented the ¨Sofia City Of Film¨ Grand Prix to the young directors.

The Lesson, which is handled internationally by Wide Management, premiered last year...

Hot projects new to Screenbase include Nicolas Winding Refn feature The Neon Demon, Pope Francis biopic Francisco, Brady Corbet’s directorial debut The Childhood Of A Leader and a new adaptation by Wim Wenders.Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon

Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks, Abbey Lee, Bella Heathcote and Jena Malone have signed on to co-star in Nicolas Winding Refn’s next feature.

“After making Drive and falling madly in love with the electricity of Los Angeles, I knew I had to return to tell the story of The Neon Demon,” Winding Refn said.

Principal photography will begin in Los Angeles on March 30. Gaumont and Wild Bunch are co-selling the title.

Wim Wenders’ Les Beaux Jours D’Aranjuez

This adaptation of the play by Peter Handke was announced by Alfama’s Paulo Branco during the Efm. It will star Reda Kateb and Sophie Semin. Wenders is expected to shoot in June.

Brady Corbet’s [link...

Exclusive: Shoot underway on Childhood of a Leader.

Berenice Bejo, Robert Pattinson and Stacy Martin have been joined by Liam Cunningham (Game Of Thrones), Yolande Moreau (Amelie) and Sophie Curtis (Arbitrage) for Brady Corbet’s directorial feature debut The Childhood of A Leader, which is shooting now on location in Hungary.

The film charts the birth of a terrifying ego during the rise of fascism in the early 20thcentury.

Protagonist reps international sales, Wme handles North America.

Corbet, best known for his work as an actor in Melancholia, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Funny Games, co-wrote the script with Mona Fastvold.

The drama is a Unanimous Entertainment and Mact Films production in association with FilmTeam in Hungary. Funding comes from Media House Capital, Bow and Arrow Entertainment, Scope Pictures and Scion Pictures.

Producers are Chris Coen (Funny Games), Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Helena Danielsson (Beyond) and Istvan Major. Ron Curtis, Brian Young, Aaron L. Gilbert, [link...

The Childhood of a Leader

Director: Brady Corbet // Writers: Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold

Working with the likes of Bonello, Östlund, Assayas, Hansen-Løve and Baumbach, when you count the 2014 festival release year alone, actor Brady Corbet (Mysterious Skin; Funny Games U.S.; Simon Killer) has built quite the impressive resume working with the auteur set. While The Childhood of a Leader is his feature length directing debut, this counts as back to back years working in the filmmaker capacity when you take into account his writing creds in Mona Fastvold’s overlooked ’14 title, The Sleepwalker, and the soon to be premiered Sundance short Rabbit, by filmmaker Laure De Clermont-Tonnerre. Initially announced as starring Juliette Binoche (Corbet’s co-star from Clouds of Sils Maria), she was later replaced by Berenice Bejo. It goes without saying that most of the attention will be placed on Robert Pattinson, continuing his tour of difficult, auteur driven and inspired cinematic projects,...

Moscow Business Square (June 21-24) runs parallel to the Moscow International Film Festival.

The UK and Latin America are the focus of the sixth Moscow Business Square (Mbs) (June 21-24) which is being held parallel to the Moscow International Film Festival (June 19-28).

The programme of events will include case studies of the Cannes 2014 title El Ardor and the first ever Brazilian-Russian co-production Red Russian, as well as of Vera Glagoleva’s Turgenev adaptation Two Women, starring Ralph Fiennes, and Peter Briggs’ Tank88.

In addition, there will be presentations of Russian documentaries at the stage of post-production to festival programmers, distributors and sales agents as well as roundtables on the production and distribution of biopics, potential for international remakes of Russian properties, legal aspects of the Russian VoD market and a day dedicated to trends in the Russian and international animation sectors.

From Australia to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan to Colombia

Mbs’ four-day programme will kick-off on June 21 with...

31st edition of festival will close with The Wind Rises.

The 31st edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival will kick off on July 10 with the world premiere of Eran Riklis’ Dancing Arabs.

Sayed Kashua wrote the script based on his bestselling novels Dancing Arabs and Second Person Singular.

The film is about Eyad, a Palestinian-Israeli boy from the town of Tira whose parents send to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Jerusalem. He has to make personal sacrifices to be accepted in the new environment.

The gala screening will take place at the Sultan’s Pool in the presence of the director and cast members including Tawfeek Barhom, Yael Abecassis, Michael Moshonov, Ali Suliman, Daniel Kitzis and Norman Issa.

Dancing Arabs is an Israeli-German-French co-production, produced by Chilik Michaeli, Avraham Pirchi, Tami Leon, Moshe Edery, and Leon Edery, Michael Eckelt, Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre and Bettina Brokemper.

The festival will close on July 17 with Hayao Miyazaki’s The...

Films from Russia, Kosovo and Serbia were the main winners at this year’s FilmFestival Cottbus and its parallel East-West co-production market Connecting Cottbus.

Russian director Aleksandr Veledinsky’s The Geographer Drank His Globe Away has continued its successful international festival career by picking up the Main Prize at Germany’s Cottbus festival with a cash award of €20,000.

The International Competition Jury praised Veledinsky’s “exquisite mastery of his craft and great playfulness” in its motivation.

Handled internationally by Moscow-based Ant!pode Sales & Distribution, The Geographer Drank His Globe Away was released theatrically on almost 500 screens in Russia last Thursday (Nov 7) as well as in the Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Forthcoming festival invitations include the Black Nights Festival in Tallinn and festivals in Tromsø and Göteborg.

Winning the festival’s Main Prize also gives Veledinsky and his producers the opportunity to return to Cottbus next year as part of Connecting Cottbus’ Special Pitch Award for them to...

Russian distributor Luxor has picked up the upcoming film from actor/producer Alexander Nevsky, Black Rose, shooting in Moscow until July 7.

The production by Nevsky’s own La-based company Hollywood Storm has a cast including Kristanna Loken, Adrian Paul, Robert Davi, Matthias Hues, and world champion ballroom dancer and fitness model Oksana Sidorenko.

The screenplay by Brent Huff and George Saunders centres on a Moscow police major (played by Nevsky) who travels to Los Angeles to help the local police there investigate a series of murders in the Russian immigrant community.

After the Moscow shoot, the film will move to Los Angeles, and theatrical release is planned for December 2013.

Depardieu to play Caucasian hermit

Russian citizen Gérard Depardieu is to follow his title role in Irakli Kvirikadze’s Rasputin, which will close the Moscow International Film Festival on Saturday (June 29), with a part as a Caucasian hermit in Polish film-maker Jan Jakub Kolski’s next feature, My Mother...

While Paris recovers from its post-New Year hangover by bingeing on the “soldes” (sales) an invasion of a different sort has taken over the cinemas along the Grands Boulevards for this year's Rendez-vous with French Cinema. A veritable army of international film buyers looking for the next Untouchable or The Artist are attending screenings in cinemas close to the fabled Grand Hotel where the Lumiere Brothers first gave Parisians a taste of the movies more than 100 years ago.

The rather Presidential and distinguished Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre who is the head of the film promotional body Unifrance who organise the event now in its 15th year, noted that more than 50 countries were represented from Europe, Australia and China as well as North and South America.

Because the French industry is primarily based in Paris the organisers can muster more than 100 “artists” for journalists to interview this weekend, among...

The French Embassy in India and Unifrance, today hosted a special screening at Metro Cinema for the movie .Heartbreaker. starring . Vanessa Paridis, Romain Duris and Julie Ferrier . to celebrate the launch of .3rd Rendez-vous With French Cinema In India.. The highlight of the evening was the French Glitterati walking the red carpet . Actress of .Heartbreaker. Julie Ferrier, François Ozon (Director of Potiche), Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre (President of Unifrance), Régine Hatchondo (General Manager of Unifrance),  Jérôme Seydoux (Chairman of Pathé. The carpet sizzled when the famed actress Kristin Scott Thomas strutted in her stunning gown. .Heartbreaker. releases in India by February 2011 and will be distributed by PictureWorks in IndiaThe event also saw a host of cinema enthusiasts like Milind Soman, Rakesh Om Prakash Mehra, Sudhir Mishra, Sonali Kulkarni, Simone Singh, Lillete & Ira Dubey amongst others.The festival seeks to establish an exhilarating platform for showcasing the various facets of French contemporary cinema in India,...

Paris -- The world said "oui" to Gallic movies over the past decade with a 75% increase in ticket sales from 2000 to 2009, according to figures from French film promotion organization Unifrance, despite a 22% boxoffice dip for French films abroad last year.

In 2009, French films sold 62 million tickets abroad, which Unifrance estimates will reach 66 million once final stats are calculated.

The number is down from 2008's record year of 84.2 million tickets, but still relatively stable compared to previous years -- in line with 67.3 million in 2007, 62 million in 2006 and better than 2004's 50.1 million and 2003's 48.5 million.

"There were simply less films with big international ambition than in 2008. Movies such as 'Asterix' or 'Welcome to the Sticks' carry the boxoffice, and there weren't many of those this year," Unifrance president Antoine De Clermont-Tonnerre explained. He added: "There was a big diversity of titles, particularly a lot of auteur films, which is great, but it...

Paris -- European distributors, French sales agents and international press will break bread and cheese Wednesday as state film promotion organization Unifrance's 12th annual's Rendez-Vous with French cinema kicks off in Paris.

But don't expect to hear any American accents.

More than 400 film distribution execs and 120 journalists from 26 countries will join French sales reps, directors and talent for a five-day sampling of the best of Gallic cinema. U.S. buyers, however, will have to wait until Unifrance's stand-alone event in March in New York in order to sample the latest in Gallic big screen fare due to the Paris event's impossible timing.

"Were it not for Sundance running concurrently with the Paris Rdv and Berlin just a few weeks later, we're sure more American buyers would come. From talking with them, we get the strong impression they'd like to -- they're certainly welcome!" Unifrance's stateside executive director John Kochman said in an interview.

More Afm news

Myriad Pictures, which first offered the psychological thriller "Cry of the Owl" for presale at the 2007 Cannes Film Market, plans to release the film itself in U.S. theaters this fall.

Written and directed by Jamie Thraves and based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, "Owl" stars Julia Stiles as a woman being stalked by a man, played by Paddy Considine.

Paramount Home Entertainment will release "Owl" on DVD, VOD and PPV, and Myriad will handle the pay TV and other markets in the U.S.

Myriad took a similar tact last year when it released the Dario Argento horror-thriller "Mother of Tears" to U.S. theaters.

"We decided to try to be more proactive and in control of the U.S. exploitation of our titles which we hope will also benefit our producers," Myriad president and CEO Kirk D'Amico said. "Our U.S. distribution model allows...

Margaret Menegoz has been replaced by Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre as Unifrance President. De Clermont-Tonnere's top agenda item is to help French sales agents and producers weather the current financial crisis with ways to reach new markets and to further promote films in the international marketplace even in the face of the Foreign Affairs ministry's reduction in its contribution to Unifrance as it has been reducing all its contributions to cultural expenditure. De Clermont-Tonnerre is expected to announce his choice of General Manager for Unifrance shortly. He confirmed that he intends to remain active as a producer through his company, MACT Productions, which he runs with his wife, Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre. MACT Productions has produced films including Cabaret Balkan and Someone Else’s America by Goran Paskaljevic, and Lemon Tree by Eran Riklis.