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Eight independent female-led production companies have come together in France to launch Athena, a collective designed to foster parity in the country’s film and audiovisual industries.

The initiative, fuelled by an investment of €6.3m from French insurance companies Maif and Aréas Assurances, aims to help the producers take on more large-scale projects and expand their companies.

The investment, which is repayable, will be divided among the companies based on their individual business plans and agreed upon with the investors.

The producers are: Didar Domehri of Maneki Stories, Carole Lambert of Windy Productions, Caroline Bonmarchand of Avenue B Productions, Albane de Jourdan...

The steaming chaos and viciously hurled epithets of such reality shows as “Top Chef” and “Kitchen Nightmares” thankfully have no place in “Kitchen Brigade,” which sees a gifted chef train eager amateurs with quiet hauteur, exacting shallot-slicing demands and, in time, a dose of kindness. The stakes are higher, too, in director Louis-Julien Petit’s amiable social dramedy: These young apprentices aren’t sharpening their skills merely to stay in a competition, but to stay in the country, threatened as they are with deportation if they can’t acquire relevant skills. The cruelties of the French immigration system lend a bitter back note to Petit’s otherwise upbeat heartwarmer — a mostly palatable affair that can’t wholly sidestep white-savior cliché in a rushed final course.

Petit’s previous three films — “Discount,” “Invisibles” and the Isabelle Adjani starrer “Carole Matthieu” — established his credentials as a maker of socially conscious entertainments, trading...

Screen Rant is pleased to present an exclusive clip from the upcoming French film, Kitchen Brigade. The heartwarming comedy centers on an out-of-work chef who finds herself working in the kitchen of a shelter for young migrants in France. The film was directed by Louis-Julien Petit, who co-wrote with Liza Benguigui and Sophie Bensadoun, in collaboration with Thomas Pujo. It stars César Award-nominated Audrey Lamy, and César Award winner François Cluzet. Kitchen Brigade will be released in theaters and video on demand on January 13th.

Cathy (Lamy) is a 40-year-old sous-chef who is finally about to fulfill a lifelong dream to open her own gastronomic restaurant. Of course, nothing goes as planned, and because she's facing serious financial difficulties, she's forced to reluctantly accept a new job. As the chef in a cafeteria in a shelter for young migrants. Cathy at first hates her new position, but her passion for...

Exclusive: Atwater Capital, the media investment firm that has become an increasingly active presence in media and content generation, is set to finance development of an English-language remake of Les Invisibles, the Louis-Julien Petit-directed French film. Deal was made in Cannes.

Adapted by Petit and Marion Doussot from the Claire Lajeunie novel Sur La Route Des Invisibles, Femmes Dans La Rue, the film focuses on the imminent closing of a homeless shelter for woman due to an administration decision. The social workers running the center will do whatever it takes to reintegrate the women back into society. They have no protocol, everything is permitted — but time is running out.

Produced by Liza Benguigui at Elemiah, the female-driven comedy was among France’s top-grossing 2018 films with north of $10 million in ticket sales.

“We are thrilled to invest in this story about empowering and supporting women who are doing their part to improve the human condition,...