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Vincent Maël Cardona, whose 2021 pic “Magnetic Beats” won a prize at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and a Cesar Award for best first film, is set to direct “De Grâce,” a sprawling crime thriller unfolding in the northern French port city of Le Havre.

The series is being co-produced and commissioned by Arte France, and is produced by Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin at Ego Productions, a Mediawan company. Belgium’s Savage Films is co-producing. Mediawan Rights is representing the show in international markets.

Set to start shooting on location in Le Havre on Aug. 8, “De Grâce” features a strong ensemble cast including Olivier Gourmet (“The Minister”), Margot Bancilhon (“Five”), Panayotis Pascot (“Mon chien stupide”), Pierre Lottin (“Notre-Dame on Fire”), Astrid Whettnall (“Baron noir”), Philippe Rebbot.(“L’amour flou”) and French rapper Gringe.

“De Grâce,” penned by Maxime Crupaux (“Cherif”) and Baptiste Fillon, tells the story of Pierre Leprieur (Gourmet), a native of Le Havre who...

Celluloid Dreams has released the trailer for “School’s Out,” Sébastien Marnier’s Venice-bound follow-up to “Faultless.” Laurent Lafitte of “Elle” stars as a substitute who takes over a classroom following the death of his predecessor, who committed suicide in front of his students; from the looks of things, the kids aren’t all right. Avail yourself of the trailer below.

Here’s the synopsis: “A high school teacher throws himself from the classroom window before the terrified eyes of his students. Despite the tragedy, six of them remain oddly cool and unemotional. Pierre, the new substitute teacher, notices the hostile behaviour of this close-knit clique. Smart and precocious, the six teenagers seem to be preparing a mysterious plan after school. Pierre becomes obsessed with them and is quickly sucked into their sinister game. His life soon turns into a nightmare.”

Emmanuelle Bercot, Gregory Montel, Gringe, and Pascal Greggory co-star in the film,...

Already the 2018 film festival circuit has yielded two high-profile titles that both deal with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse: Jennifer Fox’s Sundance sensation “The Tale,” and Cannes discovery “Little Tickles,” the debut film from Andréa Bescond, co-directed by Eric Métayer and based on Bescond’s autobiographical one-woman play. The films bear many similarities: Both are from female filmmakers and based on their own experiences. Both use the protagonist’s creativity as the conduit to investigate their trauma. Most strikingly, both employ a device in which the protagonist as an adult can interact with herself as a child, allowing them to wander in and out of memories as if they were adjacent rooms in the same house.

Bescond further complicates her tricky, occasionally clumsy past-and-present-colliding motif by making the adult Odette (played by Bescond herself) into a less-than-reliable narrator. Sometimes what we see did not happen at all, or not in that place,...