News

Nolita Cinema’s musical Hear Me Love, starring France’s biggest pop star Clara Luciani in her first lead role, has started shooting in Paris as part of a revival of the film musical in France.

Set between Paris and Rome’s Cinecitta’s Studios in the 1970s, Hear Me Love (Joli Joli) follows a struggling writer looking for inspiration for his second novel who falls in love with a famous movie star. It is the fifth feature by French film and theatre director Diastème and is being scored by composer Alex Beaupain.

Ginger & Fed is selling the film...

The Lost Patient (Le patient) is an Arte TV thriller directed by Christophe Charrier, starring Txomin Vergez and Clotilde Hesme.

A story that has some potential, but it goes unused.

Premise

Thomas has been in a coma for three years when he wakes up and remembers nothing. His psychologist, Anna, informs him that his family has been murdered and that he is the only survivor of the massacre while his sister Laura is still missing.

Movie Review

This feature is a French thriller produced by Arte TV that does not stand out neither in its cinematography, nor – in its difficult condition of being a TV production – in its story. It reduces what could have been good story to a simplistic, and a not a majorly artistic, endeavor.

Txomin Vergez’s performance is good enough, although not outstanding in this a movie that leaves one somewhat indifferent.

‘The Lost Patient’ is laden with clichés,...

The Party Films Sales will screen exclusive images from Julien Guetta’s second feature film “Top Dogs” (“Les Cadors”) at Unifrance Rendez Vous in Paris.

“Top Dogs” is a comedy drama about two estranged brothers from Normandy. Antoine is happily married with two kids and a successful boat driver, whereas Christian is a globe-trotting hustler. When Antoine becomes involved in sleazy activities, Christian comes to his rescue. The film is headlined by Jean-Paul Rouve, the star of one of France’s biggest comedy franchises, “Les Tuches,” as well as Michel Blanc, another French comedy fixture (“Les bronzés”) and Grégoire Ludig (“Mandibules”).

“Top Dogs” marks the sophomore outing of Guetta whose feature debut “The Troubleshooter,” a comedy-adventure, garnered more than 145,000 admissions in France.

Currently in post-production, “Top Dogs” is produced by Maxime Delauney and Romain Rousseau at Nolita Cinéma, and Lionel Dutemple and Benjamin Morgaine at Princesse Beli. It was mainly shot in Cherbourg,...

Jim Cummings’s “Thunder Road” won the Grand Prize at the 44th edition of the Normandie-set Deauville American Film Festival.

“Thunder Road” follows a broken cop who comes to grips with a death of his mom when giving a heartfelt eulogy at her funeral. The movie previously won the Grand Jury Award at South by Southwest. Paname Distribution will release the movie in France. “Thunder Road” is an expanded version of Cummings’s 2016 short film by the same name, which had won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize.

Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman described “Thunder Road” as an “uncanny tale of a Middle American cop who’s a funny, crazy, moving, indelibly authentic lost soul.”

Deauville festival’s jury, which was presided by French actress Sandrine Kiberlain, handed out two Jury Prizes, to Bart Layton’s heist drama “American Animals” and Jordana Spiro’s “Night Comes On.” Meanwhile, Marc Turtletaub’s “Puzzle...

Morgan Freeman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Shailene Woodley and director Jacques Audiard are among those set to be honored at the Deauville Film Festival (Aug 31 – Sept 9) later this month in France.

Oscar-winner Freeman will receive a career homage while Sex And The City star Parker will get Deauville’s Talent prize. Cannes Palme d’Or winner Jacques Audiard, who will be at the festival with Joaquin Phoenix and John C Reilly to introduce their Western The Sisters Brothers, will receive an honorary award.

Parker will join Kate Beckinsale and Jason Clarke as honorees for the festival’s Talent prize. Elle Fanning and Shailene Woodley will receive this year’s Rising Star award while writer John Grisham is getting the event’s literary prize.

Freeman’s honor comes just months after CNN ran a story in which eight women accused him of inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment. The Oscar-winning actor has denied...

Jacques Audiard’s anticipated “The Sisters Brothers,” Melanie Laurent’s “Galveston” and Sahar Jessica Parker starrer “Blue Night” are among the 63 films set to play at the 44th edition of Deauville American Film Festival.

Running Aug.31 to Sept.9, the festival will wrap with Chris Weitz’s “Operation Finale” with Oscar Isaac an Sir Ben Kingsley who will both attend the screening.

Audiard, the Palme d’Or winning director of “Dheepan” and “A Prophet,” will attend the festival with “The Sisters Brothers” stars Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly ahead of the film’s North American premiere at Toronto. Audiard will receive an honorary award which Deauville’s artistic director Bruno Barde said was created for the helmer.

Barde said “The Sisters Brothers” was an instant classic in the veins of Michael Cimino’s masterpiece “Heaven’s Gate.” The artistic director also pointed out Audiard was one of the four French...

Christophe Honoré with photographs of Federico Fellini's 81/2 star, Sandra Milo Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Christophe Honoré's vividly mischievous Sophie’s Misfortunes, based on the Comtesse de Ségur's books, Les Malheurs De Sophie and Les Petites Filles Modèles, has a score by Alex Beaupain and David Sztanke, influenced by music the director himself liked as a child. Golshifteh Farahani (Madame de Réan), Anaïs Demoustier (Madame de Fleurville) and Muriel Robin (Madame Fichini) play the mothers in Sophie's (Caroline Grant) world. She and her playmates, Camille (Céleste Carrale), Madeleine (Justine Morin) and Paul (Tristan Farge) show us that the dawn belongs to children.

Madeleine, Camille, Sophie, and Paul in Sophie’s Misfortunes

Christophe explains a reference to me from Jean Vigo's Zéro De Conduite, says Sophie’s Misfortunes isn't John Lasseter's Toy Story, and happily notes that doing a film for children helped him "clean up" his cinema by...

Les Malheurs de Sophie

Director: Christophe Honoré

Writers: Christophe Honoré, Gilles Tourand

One of France’s most underrated directors (at least judging on the level of attention he receives overseas) is Christophe Honoré, who is perhaps best known for his 2007 film, Love Songs, which played in the Main Competition at Cannes. A unique and utterly charming musical, Honore followed up his collaboration with Alex Beaupain with less success for 2011’s Beloved, which closed the Cannes Film Festival. Usually casting either Louis Garrell, Chiara Mastroianni or both in nearly all his features, his latest, Metamorphoses (2014), an adaptation of the famed text by Greek poet Ovid, premiered at Venice Days with little fanfare. Honore’s also responsible for the provocative George Bataille adaptation, Ma Mere (2004) which features an infamous performance from Isabelle Huppert. His tenth feature film, Les Malheurs de Sophie (Sophie’s Woes), is loosely based on a famed children’s...

Les Malheurs de Sophie

Director: Christophe Honoré // Writers: Christophe Honoré, Gilles Taurand

One of France’s most underrated directors (at least judging on the level of attention he receives overseas) is Christophe Honoré, who is perhaps best known for his 2007 film, Love Songs, which played in the Main Competition at Cannes. A unique and utterly charming musical, Honore followed up his collaboration with Alex Beaupain with less success for 2011’s Beloved, which closed the Cannes Film Festival. Usually casting either Louis Garrell, Chiara Mastroianni or both in nearly all his features, his latest (see trailer below), Metamorphoses (2014), an adaptation of the famed text by Greek poet Ovid, premiered at Venice Days with little fanfare. Honore’s also responsible for the provocative George Bataille adaptation, Ma Mere (2004) which features an infamous performance from Isabelle Huppert. His tenth feature film, Sophie’s Woes, is loosely based on a famed children’s novel by the Countess of Segur,...

Christophe Honoré's latest film stars some of the greatest actors in contemporary France. Beloved features Catherine Deneuve, who appears alongside her real-life daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, as well as Ludivine Sagnier, who is best-known for her work in François Ozon's racy film Swimming Pool. Make no mistake -- Beloved is about women, although the men are no slouches: Milos Forman, Louis Garrel, Paul Schneider, Michel Delpech and Rasha Bukvic round out the main cast. But Honoré's focus is about love and loss, specifically for the multifaceted and often mysterious female characters we see on screen. We had the opportunity to sit down with the filmmaker to discuss his life and work in order to find out more about his motivations. Scroll down for images.

You’ve recently co-written ‘Let My People Go.’ How did you get involved with this project?

It’s actually really simple. I give some courses at Fémis,...

As expected, American Pie: Reunion had a solid first week at the box office but didn’t trouble the all-conquering Avengers at the top of the cinematic pile.

Truth be told I don’t see anything getting near the Marvel epic for another week or so yet either. It smashed the opening weekend box office record set by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in the States and unsurprisingly a sequel has been confirmed this week by the studio.

This week’s big release though should do a pretty bit of business at the box office as well with Tim Burton’s latest quirky baroque offering Dark Shadows making its arrival on the big screen.

Burton has amassed some serious box office bank with his recent offerings such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factor and Alice in Wonderland and can now pretty much do whatever he pleases in the eyes of his employers.

★★☆☆☆ Prolific French director Christophe Honoré reunites with composer Alex Beaupain for yet another post-modern musical drama, Beloved (Les Bien-Aimés, 2011). Boasting an all-star French cast including Catherine Deneuve, Ludivine Sagnier, Chiara Mastroianni and Louis Garrel, as well as outsourcing talent from abroad (Czech director Milos Forman, American Paul Schneider), Honoré's latest fails to live up to its initial ambitious promise.

Read more »...

Jean Dujardin, Missi Pyle, The Artist The Artist Wins, Jean Dujardin Loses: César Awards Best Film La guerre est déclarée / Declaration of War produced by Edouard Weil, directed by Valérie Donzelli Le Havre produced by Fabienne Vonier, directed by Aki Kaurismäki * The Artist produced by Thomas Langmann, directed by Michel Hazanavicius Intouchables / Untouchable produced by Denis Freyd, directed by Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache L'exercice de l'État / The Minister produced by Nicolas Duval Adassovsky, Yann Zenou, Laurent Zeitoun, directed by Pierre Schöller Pater produced by Michel Seydoux, directed by Alain Cavalier Polisse produced by Alain Attal, directed by Maïwenn Best Foreign Film Drive (United States) directed by Nicolas Winding Refn Black Swan (United States) directed by Darren Aronofsky Incendies (Canada) directed by Denis Villeneuve Melancholia (Denmark / Sweden / France / Germany) directed by Lars von Trier * A Separation (Iran) directed by Asghar Farhadi The King's Speech (United Kingdom) directed by Tom Hooper Le...

François Cluzet, Intouchables / Untouchable The 2012 César winners will be announced on February 24. The ceremony will be presided by Guillaume Canet; Antoine de Caunes will act as master of ceremonies. Best Film La guerre est déclarée / Declaration of War produced by Edouard Weil, directed by Valérie Donzelli Le Havre produced by Fabienne Vonier, directed by Aki Kaurismäki The Artist produced by Thomas Langmann, directed by Michel Hazanavicius Intouchables / Untouchable produced by Denis Freyd, directed by Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache L'exercice de l'État / The Minister produced by Nicolas Duval Adassovsky, Yann Zenou, Laurent Zeitoun, directed by Pierre Schoeller Pater produced by Michel Seydoux, directed by Alain Cavalier Polisse produced by Alain Attal, directed by Maïwenn Best Foreign Film Drive (United States) directed by Nicolas Winding Refn Black Swan (United States) directed by Darren Aronofsky Incendies (Canada) directed by Denis Villeneuve Melancholia (Denmark / Sweden / France / Germany) directed by Lars von Trier A Separation...

Spanning 50 years, over two hours and a stellar cast, "Beloved" (Les bien-aimés) by Christophe Honoré is quite the ambitious project, and fans of his well-received "Love Songs" from 2007 will notice doses of familiar ground, and his latest film is complete with playful sexual rendez-vous, stylized period costumes and sets, sporadic bouts of song, courtesy of long-time musical collaborator Alex Beaupain and underlying tragedy. Notes iW critic Eric Kohn ...

Spanning 50 years, over two hours and a stellar cast, "Beloved" (Les bien-aimés) by Christophe Honoré is quite the ambitious project, and fans of his well-received "Love Songs" from 2007 will notice doses of familiar ground, and his latest film is complete with playful sexual rendez-vous, stylized period costumes and sets, sporadic bouts of song, courtesy of long-time musical collaborator Alex Beaupain and underlying tragedy. Notes iW critic Eric Kohn ...

"As the closing night film at Cannes — and, as such, lumped in historically with such bland films as The Tree, What Just Happened?, Chromophobia and Days of Darkness — writer-director Christophe Honoré's Les Bien-Aimés (aka Beloved) is already at a disadvantage," begins James Rocchi at the Playlist. "Sidelined out of competition, offered up as a final course to cineastes whose metaphorical bellies are already set to burst from an excess of riches, no one was going to think too much about the movie, regardless of its quality. Honoré's film in fact falls short of even the minimal expectations set by circumstance, to be truly tedious, flat and hollow — a recycled exploration of themes and techniques the director has used before inside the bloated casing of a movie with a 145-minute running time."

Honoré's films "are not musicals as Americans might think of them or, for that matter, as Jacques Demy...

Updated through 5/3.

The Cannes Film Festival has announced that Christophe Honoré's Les bien-aimés (Beloved), featuring Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, Paul Schneider and Miloš Forman, will close the festival on May 22, screening Out of Competition.

According to Septimovici, the story begins in the 60s as Madeleine (Sagnier) leaves Paris to meet her new husband, Jaromil, in Prague. As Soviet tanks roll into the city in 1968, the couple is separated. Decades later, the 90s, and Madeleine, now played by Deneuve, sees her daughter (Mastroianni, Deneuve's real-life daughter), fall for a man in London — but her love goes unrequited. Honoré's stated that he intends to contrast the 60s, those years of love and revolution and sexual liberation, with the 90s, an era shot through with the ominous threat of AIDS and an overall fear of commitment. And his mode will be the musical; the film is an overt homage to Jacques Demy,...

A clip has been released from Christophe Honoré’s Les Bien-aimés (The Beloved), the closing ceremony film of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The film stars Catherine Deneuve, Ludivine Sagnier, Chiara Mastroianni, Milos Forman, Louis Garrel, and Michel Delpech. The clip features Deneuve and her daughter Chiara (who is also the daughter of Marcello Mastroianni) singing “Une fille légère”, written by Alex Beaupain.

Here’s the official synopsis:

From Paris in the Sixties to London in the 2000s, Madeleine and her daughter Véra come and go in the lives of the men that they move. But living lighthearted love becomes more difficult as the years go by. How do you resist the force of passing time and which attacks our deepest sentiments?

via The Collider...

After having worked with her daughter, Chiara Mastroianni in his last film (Making Plans for Lena), Christophe Honoré will now work with Catherine Deneuve in his next project to begin lensing this fall. Entitled Les Bien-Aimés (The Beloved), Deneuve, who was supposed to have played in Ma mère (Huppert would take the role) will play the title character in this rom com - Mastroianni, Ludivine Sagnier and the frequent Honoré collaborator Louis Garrel, are also joining the project. Les Bien-Aimés is based on several love stories set at different times, in multiple locations, in the city of Prague in 1968, to contemporary London. Sagnier plays Deneuve of the Czechoslovakia 60's. Honoré will work again with composer Alex Beaupain.

'Celebrating cinema's emerging talents' - That's our new slogan, and I think tMF has come a long way, but of course there is still room for improvement. I think we're lucky that our viewers care enough to tell us both our good and bad points. The October edition of the Top 50 Hitlist will reflect all these... In the meantime, tMF puts the spotlight on today's rising stars - these are the guys who really made a lot of buzz - grabbed plum roles despite intense competition and would be working with the industry's topnotch filmmakers, and more.

Find out who they are - you've certainly heard some of them and a few might be unfamiliar names, but take a closer look - you might be missing some names who are still 'under the radar' but would soon be rockin' the scene!

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As in the past,...

'Celebrating cinema's emerging talents' - That's our new slogan, and I think tMF has come a long way, but of course there is still room for improvement. I think we're lucky that our viewers care enough to tell us both our good and bad points. The October edition of the Top 50 Hitlist will reflect all these... In the meantime, tMF puts the spotlight on today's rising stars - these are the guys who really made a lot of buzz - grabbed plum roles despite intense competition and would be working with the industry's topnotch filmmakers, and more.

Find out who they are - you've certainly heard some of them and a few might be unfamiliar names, but take a closer look - you might be missing some names who are still 'under the radar' but would soon be rockin' the scene!

- - -

- - -

As in the past,...

'Celebrating cinema's emerging talents' - That's our new slogan, and I think tMF has come a long way, but of course there is still room for improvement. I think we're lucky that our viewers care enough to tell us both our good and bad points. The October edition of the Top 50 Hitlist will reflect all these... In the meantime, tMF puts the spotlight on today's rising stars - these are the guys who really made a lot of buzz - grabbed plum roles despite intense competition and would be working with the industry's topnotch filmmakers, and more.

Find out who they are - you've certainly heard some of them and a few might be unfamiliar names, but take a closer look - you might be missing some names who are still 'under the radar' but would soon be rockin' the scene!

- - -

- - -

As in the past,...

'Celebrating cinema's emerging talents' - That's our new slogan, and I think tMF has come a long way, but of course there is still room for improvement. I think we're lucky that our viewers care enough to tell us both our good and bad points. The October edition of the Top 50 Hitlist will reflect all these... In the meantime, tMF puts the spotlight on today's rising stars - these are the guys who really made a lot of buzz - grabbed plum roles despite intense competition and would be working with the industry's topnotch filmmakers, and more.

Find out who they are - you've certainly heard some of them and a few might be unfamiliar names, but take a closer look - you might be missing some names who are still 'under the radar' but would soon be rockin' the scene!

- - -

- - -

As in the past,...