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French cinema guilds L’Arp and La Srf have put out a joint statement declaring solidarity with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Many of the demands around value sharing and A.I. regulation of the Hollywood writers and actors, who went on strike on May 2 and July 14 respectively, chime with long-running battles of the two organizations in France.

“This double social movement, a first since 1960 in Hollywood, is the sign of a major turning point, where the issues of value sharing, the integration of new models and artificial intelligence are central,” the bodies in a joint statement, issued on Thursday.

“At the heart of these demands, is the future of our sector. To guarantee that authors and artists continue to emerge and renew creation, we must on the one hand adapt value-sharing to new distribution models, so that the transition from linear does not lead to a weakening of creators,” it continued.

UK production company is looking to make as many as 10 films this year.

Bardot and Cold Meat producer Featuristic Films has appointed former Motion Picture Capital production executive Laura Brook as head of film.

The appointment was confirmed this week by Julien Loeffler, managing director at the London-based company which is now looking to expand.

Brook’s appointment follows on from that of former UKTV and Wag Entertainment exec Meredith Coral as Featuristic Films’ head of TV last year.

At Motion Picture Capital Brook worked on projects such as Netflix’s The Titan and Kodachrome with Ed Harris, Elizabeth Olsen and Jason Sudeikis.

Alain Berliner, who directed the BAFTA-nominated and Golden Globe-winning “Ma vie en rose,” is in pre-production on feature documentary “Bardot,” about French actor, singer and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot. Bardot is giving the project her full support, and will narrate the film herself.

“Bardot” is produced by Julien Loeffler, James Kermack and James Barton-Steel at Featuristic Films, teaming with Nicolas Bary at TimpelPictures. They have released an exclusive first look image from the film.

The film will offer Bardot an opportunity “to speak openly about her life and revisit some of the issues she feels passionately about,” such as women’s place in society, animal welfare, deforestation and global warming, according to a statement from the producers. It will contain never seen before archive film and photos, as well as music from the 1950s and 1960s.

Berliner said: “The icon that is Brigitte Bardot remains a mystery. Today, she should be considered a feminist,...

Aton Soumache, producer of Mark Osborne’s global hit The Little Prince, talks about bringing the French classic to the big screen and his ambitions for Paris-based mini-major On Entertainment.

Producers Aton Soumache and Dimitri Rassam of On Entertainment received Unifrance’s French Cinema Award at its annual Rendez-vous in Paris over the weekend in recognition of the global success of their recent production, Mark Osborne’s The Little Prince.

The $57m production has drawn more than 15 million spectators worldwide since its release last July, making it the most successful French-produced feature-length animation of all time, and has still to hit screens in the Us, where Paramount Pictures has set a March 18 launch. UK and Canada releases are due around the same time.

When Soumache and Rassam first approached Osborne about directing an animation adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic novella, the Kung Fu Panda director turned them down. The pair had...

The Artist star, Berenice Bejo is apparently in some serious negotiations to join an upcoming French-language drama which comes from director Michele Placido. Titled The Choice, the movie is Placido’s follow-up to the 2011 crime thriller The Lookout, and is also one of 27 projects presented at Les Arcs European Film Festival’s Co-Production Village.

Inspired by Luigi Pirandello‘s novel, The Choice will center on a woman who discovers she is pregnant following a rape. She and her husband, who love each other deeply, but haven’t been able to concieve a child together, are faced with a terrible choice.

As you already guess – if negotiations with Bejo work out, she will come on board to portray the above mentioned woman.

The Choice is produced by Maxime Delauney’s Nolita Cinema and Romain Rousseau, and according to them, the movie is:

…not only a drama, but a powerful love story...

The Scapegoat – or, Au bonheur des ogres, in the original French – adapts the first novel of the same name in Daniel Pennac’s popular ‘La Saga Malaussène’ series, making it a very promising crime-comedy to look forward to next year.

The first three posters for the French-language film have made their way online, giving us a look at leading man, Raphaël Personnaz as the series’ eponymous Benjamin Malaussène.

Starring alongside him will be the lovely Bérénice Bejo, the Oscar-nominated star of last year’s success story, The Artist, as well as Emir Kusturica, Thierry Neuvic, Guillaume de Tonquedec, and Mélanie Bernier.

“There is something strange and fishy – some would even say abnormal – about the Malaussène tribe. But if you take a closer look, no one could be happier than this cheerfully chaotic family, even though their mother is usually off on one romantic junket or other, leaving behind a slew...

Unless you count Roman Polanski’s Tess as a significant invite, Pathe International is pretty much relegated to market screenings, but this week it was announced that Denis Villeneuve’s An Enemy to be shot in Toronto with Jake Gyllenhaal, so it looks like there is definitely something to look forward to with this French sales co.

An Enemy by Denis Villeneuve

Beauty And The Beast (La Belle Et La BÊTE) by Christophe Gans

Jappeloup by Christian Duguay

Alceste A Bicyclette by Philippe Le Guay

Bowling by Marie-Castille Mention Schaar

Happiness Never Comes Alone (Un Bonheur N’Arrive Jamais Seul) by James Huth

Houba! On The Trail Of The Marsupilami (Sur La Piste Du Marsupilami) by Alain Chabat

It Happened In Saint Tropez (Des Gens Qui S’Embrassent) by Danièle Thompson

Last Passenger by Omid Nooshin

My Best Holidays (Nos Plus Belles Vacances) by Philippe Lellouche

No One Lives by Ryuhei Kitamura

Sea,...

The Golden Globe-nominated director of The Artist has announced his next project: a re-imagining of Fred Zinnemann’s Oscar-winning 1948 film, The Search. Though Michel Hazanavicius is currently in the middle of the awards season for The Artist (a black-and-white, dialogue-free tribute to the silent era of movies), he’s already setting his sights on a contemporary slant on The Search. The original was a story about a mother’s search for her young son who survived the concentration camps of World War II. His version will be set in Chechnya and will focus on the “special relationship between a woman and a young boy as well.” The Artist co-star and Hazanavicius’ wife, Berenice Bejo is already attached as the female lead, an Ngo employee in the war-torn republic of Chechnya. Hit the jump for more on The Search. Variety originally reported on Hazanavicius’ new project, which will also be produced by The Artist producer,...

Peter Kubelka's Schwechater (1958)

Filmmaker Paul Clipson, profiled last month on the occasion of his winning a Goldie from the Bay Guardian, presents Commodified Cinema: Art, Advertising, and Commodities in Film today at noon at Sfmoma. Brecht Andersch: "Clipson is on to something here: from its inception, cinema has been seen by hoity toities as the commodified form par excellence, a cultural equivalent to advertising. As time rolls on, the bitter ironies of these notions become painfully evident: due to their relative fragility as art objects when run through a projector, celluloid artworks have never worked as collectible items of envy, and the on-going currency of critique in contemporary art has rendered much of it advertising for shallow, if politically correct ideology. In recent years, the ascendency of digital moving image technologies in all their many forms has been embraced by those with un- or semi-conscious resentment towards the photochemical...

Hot off her success in the sleeper hit "The Artist," Bérénice Bejo has landed a coveted role in "The Scapegoat," Nicolas Bary's upcoming adaptation of Daniel Pennac's best-selling French novel, "Au Bonheur des Ogres." The brunette beauty will star alongside Raphaël Personnaz and Emir Kusturica, Indie Wire reports.

Bejo will play an investigative journalist who also happens to be the girlfriend of the story's protagonist, Benjamin Malaussène (Personnaz), a "professional scapegoat" who works as a quality controller in a Paris department store, taking the blame for customer complaints. (Sounds like a not-so-fun job to us, but what do we know?)

This particular story—which is part of a five book series centered around the chaotic life of the Malaussène clan living in Paris—follows Benjamin as he becomes the prime suspect when a bomb goes off in the toy department of his store.

He presumably enlists the help of his better half,...

Bérénice Bejo has landed a role in the UK's "The Scapegoat," based on Daniel Pennac's French novel, "Au Bonheur des Ogres." Raphaël Personnaz and Emir Kusturica will costar. Rising French director Nicolas Bary will direct, with Bejo playing an investigative journalist dating a professional scapegoat who works in a Paris department store and takes blame for customer complaints. When a bomb goes off in the toy department, he must clear his name. ThePlaylist has more. Early details are arising via TMZ that Sofia Coppola is developing a project about Hollywood's Burglar Bunch, the infamous group that stole from celebrities. No script...

Berenice Bejo, Raphael Personnaz and Emir Kusturica are all set to star in an upcoming adaptation of Daniel Pennac‘s French comic novel The Scapegoat. As much as I’m surprised with Kusturica’s involvement in the whole thing, I must admit that Bejo, The Artist star, definitely looks like an awesome choice! Nicolas Bary (responsible for Les [...]

Continue reading Emir Kusturica and Berenice Bejo In The Scapegoat on FilmoFilia.

Related posts:Emir Kusturica President Of Un Certain Regard Cannes 2011 Matthew Rhys and Eileen Atkins To Star in The Scapegoat Emir Kusturica’s New Film Devoted to Fyodor Dostoyevsky...

Bérénice Bejo ("The Artist") has joined the cast of the Nicolas Bary-directed adaptation of French writer Daniel Pennac’s 1985 novel "The Scapegoat" for Chapter 2 and Pathé reports Screen Daily.

'Scapegoat' is the first of a book series and deals with Benjamin Malaussène (Raphaël Personnaz), a quality controller in a Paris department store who is skilled at taking the blame for customer complaints.

When a bomb goes off in the toy department, he is a key suspect and he starts investigating the crime to clear his name. Bejo will play his investigative journalist girlfriend who is not afraid to break the rules.

Over five million copies of the book series have been sold in France. Dimitri Rassam will produce the €11.8 million production which also stars Emir Kusturica as Benjamin's Serbian-Croatian petty criminal uncle.

Shooting is scheduled to start mid-February with an 11 week shoot in Paris and at the Delux Studios in Luxembourg.

No matter how they'll fare during the upcoming award season, it was really only a matter of time before we heard a lot more from "The Artist" stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. Their demand is sure to shoot through the roof and, now, it looks like Bejo is already plotting her upcoming schedule, scoring a role in an adaptation of Daniel Pennac's classic French novel "The Scapegoat (Au Bonheur des Ogres)" co-starring Raphaël Personnaz and Emir Kusturica. In the Nicolas Bary film, Bejo will play an investigative journalist who is also the girlfriend of the story's protagonist, Benjamin Malaussène, a “professional scapegoat” played by Personnaz, who works as a quality controller in a Paris department store, taking the blame for customer complaints. This particular novel -- which is part of a five book trilogy about the chaotic Malaussène clan living in Paris’ bohemian...

Henry Winterfeld's whimsical novel about nasty children who wake up one day to find that their parents have left them to fend for themselves in the small village of Timpelbach gets a lavish film treatment in Nicolas Bary's recent French adaptation.

Timpelbach is a small village without history… or almost. Since many weeks, the children of the village multiply jokes and bad blows, putting at end patience adults. One morning, the children awake in a phantom city. A word placarded on the door of the town hall announces that, not supporting more the way in which the children treat them, the parents decided to leave for always.

For some reason this beautifully realized film only received a short theatrical run last December in France and Belgium and is only now attempting to cross the pond. Last week it showed in Germany as part of the European Film Market screenings...