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Exclusive: France TV Distribution has unveiled a raft of deals on Andréa Bescond and Éric Métayer’s intergenerational comedy-drama Big Kids.

The film has sold to Brazil (Imovision), Benelux (Cinéart), Spain (Vercine), Switzerland (Agora Films), Poland (Best Film Co), Baltics (Unlimited Media), Central America (Babilla) and Taiwan (Avjet International Media Co.).

Ad Vitam released the film in France in April, achieving a gross of just under $1million.

Inspired by real-life stories in France, the movie revolves around a group of school children who end up spending their lunch breaks at a nearby nursing home while their school cafeteria is being remodelled.

The caretaker, played by Vincent Macaigne, is not happy to see the school children invade his residents’ territory, and an intergenerational clash seems inevitable.

However, shared interests and a series of comical situations foster new friendships between the elderly residents and their young lunchtime guests.

It’s the second feature from Little Tickles co-directors Andrea Bescond and Eric Metayer.

France tv distribution has acquired world sales rights to French filmmakers Andrea Bescond and Eric Metayer’s nursing-home-set comedy drama Big Kids starring Vincent Macaigne, Aissa Maiga and Marie Gillain.

It is the directorial duo’s second feature collaboration after award-winning child-abuse drama Little Tickles, which world premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2018 and sparked a public debate about the issue when it was released in France in 2019.

The duo’s new film revolves around the residents of a nursing home and a group of...

A moody, clenched drama that works its tension so deep you may find your palms marked with the indentations of your fingernails by the end, “Les Nôtres” is the deeply uneasy but compelling second film from director Jeanne Leblanc (“Isla Blanca”). Illuminated by a powerfully self-possessed performance by Émilie Bierre as the 13-year-old whose pregnancy will have dire consequences for all except the pedophile responsible, this is an enraging film astringent enough to peel the paint from the façade of virtue propped up by the small-town Quebecois community in which it takes place.

Pretty, popular Magalie (Bierre) and her little brother are being raised by her mother Isabelle (Marianne Farley) after her father died in an industrial tragedy for which the town of Sainte-Adeline is still in mourning. Isabelle is helped out by best friend Chantale, who happens to be married to the mayor and Isabelle’s employer, Jean-Marc...

Anger over return of old guard to revamped general assembly.

A promised reform drive by France’s troubled Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques has gotten off to a rocky start after the body moved to allow historic members back into its revamped general assembly including disgraced director Roman Polanski.

The 4,313 members of the body, which oversees the prestigious national César awards, elected the new general assembly earlier this month. This assembly will now vote in a gender-balanced governing board on September 29 as well as male and female presidents who will work in tandem over a two-year period.

However it...

The director and the actress have begun filming a comedy-drama revolving around the Fukushima disaster, produced by Les Films du Lendemain and sold worldwide by Le Pacte. Monday 13 January saw shooting commence on Tokyo Shaking, Olivier Peyon’s 5th feature film following on from the fiction titles Stolen Holidays (2007) and Life Beyond Me (2017), and the documentaries Comment j’ai détesté les maths (nominated for a César in 2014 in its category) and Latifa: A Fighting Heart (2017). Shining bright as the film’s lead is Karin Viard (Best Actress César in 2000 and nominated in 2005, 2012 and 2015 – the latter for The Bélier Family - and in 2018 for Jalouse; Best Supporting Role Césars in 2003 and in 2019 – the latter for Little Tickles – and nominated in 1998, 2009, 2011 and 2016; now a candidate for the upcoming 2020 Best Actress Lumières Award by way of...

The acting duo is currently performing in Peter Dourountzis’ feature debut, which is being produced by 10:15 Productions and will be sold by Kinology. The shoot for Vaurien, the feature debut by Peter Dourountzis, kicked off on 27 October and is due to wrap on 28 November. Toplining this thriller are Pierre Deladonchamps and Ophélie Bau (nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress in 2019 and winner of the Lumières Award...

Martin Provost’s comedy drama, set in the late 1960s, has sold to Canada, China and Spain.

Memento Films International (Mfi) has announced a raft of sales on Martin Provost’s comedy drama How To Be A Good Wife, starring Juliette Binoche as the headmistress of an all-girls housekeeping school at a time of social change in the late 1960s.

The film has sold to Canada (MK2 Mile End), Australia (Palace Films), Latin America (California Filmes), Japan (New Select), China (Infotainment), Taiwan (Creative Century) and airlines (Skeye).

European territory deals include to Spain (A Contracorriente), Italy (Movies Inspired), Switzerland (Filmcoopi...

Domestic violence drama earns four prizes in Paris.

Xavier Legrand’s domestic violence drama Custody (Jusqu’à La Garde) was named best film at the 44th Cesar Awards in Paris on Friday (23).

Legrand’s feature directorial debut and Venice 2017 Silver Lion winner began the night on a field-leading 10 nominations alongside Gilles Lellouche’s comedy Sink Or Swim (Le Grand Bain), and also won awards for Legrand’s original screenplay, best actress Lea Drucker, and editor Yorgos Lamprinos.

Jacques Audiard was named best director for The Sisters Brothers at the ceremony in the Salle Pleyel, presided over by Kristin Scott Thomas.

Xavier Legrand’s feature debut “Custody,” a tense portrait of a family torn by domestic violence, won best film, actress (for Lea Drucker), and original screenplay at the 44th Cesar Awards, which took place at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. The awards are France’s highest film honors.

“Custody,” which marks Legrand’s follow up to his Oscar-nominated short, tells the story of a boy named Julien (Thomas Gioria), who is forced by a court ruling to split his time between his mother (Drucker) and estranged father (Denis Ménochet), whom he regards as a violent monster, amid his parents’ bitter divorce. “Custody” world-premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival, where it won two awards, and went on to play at Toronto in the competitive Platform section.

In her speech, Drucker paid homage to all the brave women who have inspired her and also dedicated the award to women who...

Per its agreement with the Conseil Supérieur d’Audiovisuel, France’s audiovisual regulatory body, Ocs must invest a certain amount of money into French film production every year in order to maintain an earlier broadcast window within the country’s rigid media timeline.

That poses little problem for Serge Laroye, Ocs’ chairman. “French cinema is important for Ocs, and in order to broadcast French titles, we need to sign an accord. If we didn’t, we’d lose preferential broadcast rights for French films and thus we’d lose value,” says Laroye. “So you accept the obligations with the best terms possible, and then you honor those obligations in an intelligent manner.”

In 2013, Ocs signed an accord with the Csa agreeing to invest €179 million ($204 million) into the local industry over a five-year period. Between 2013 and 2018, the pay TV operator invested in hundreds of local films. It re-upped at the end...

French actor-turned-director Gilles Lellouche’s “Sink or Swim” and Xavier Legrand’s feature debut “Custody” lead the race for this year’s Cesar Awards, France’s equivalent of the Oscars, with 10 nominations each, including best picture and best director.

“Sink or Swim” (“Le Grand Bain” in France), a star-driven dramedy about a men’s synchronized swimming team, world-premiered at Cannes out of competition and was released by Studiocanal. The ensemble film, which was one of the highest-grossing French films in 2018, picked up multiple nominations in the best supporting actor and actress categories, for Jean-Hugues Anglade, Philippe Katerine, Leila Bekhti and Virginie Efira.

“Custody” follows a boy named Julien (Thomas Gioria), who is forced by a court ruling to split his time between his mother (Léa Drucker) and estranged father (Denis Ménochet), whom he regards as a violent monster, amid his parents’ bitter divorce. “Custody” world-premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival,...

Intelligent comedy about women’s liberation tale unfolds in all-girls school against the backdrop of May 1968.

Memento Films International (Mfi) will kick off sales on Martin Provost’s 1960s-set comedy-drama How To Be A Good Wife, starring Juliette Binoche, at the Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris this week (January 17-21).

Binoche will star as the co-head of an all-girls housekeeping school in a small town in the eastern French region of Alsace in the late 1960s. She runs the school alongside husband with the mission to train teenage girls to become perfect housewives. The schools were common in...

Lumières are the Golden Globes of France.

A mixed bag of nominations for the 24th edition of France’s Lumière awards was unveiled in Paris on Monday (Dec 17).

Jacques Audiard’s Us-set, English-language The Sisters Brothers, period comedy-drama Mademoiselle de Jonquières, adoption drama Pupille and Venice-winning relationship drama Custody came out as the front-runners with four nominations each.

Following with three nominations each were Alex Lutz’s comedy-drama Guy, about a man who discovers he is the illegitimate son of a fading variety star and decides to follow him on tour; comedy The Trouble With You, sexual abuse drama Little Tickles,...

When Emmanuel Cuenod came on board the Geneva Intl. Film Festival in 2013, he took the reins of a markedly different event than the one about to unfurl Nov. 2-10.

For one thing, the festival went by a different name. At its inception in 1995, the festival was known as Tous Ecrans — French for “All Screens.” Always a platform for both feature films and television productions of all stripes, the festival has since moved to include digital offerings, Virtual/Augmented Reality content and live events in recent years, befitting a change in name, if not identity.

Last year, it officially became the Geneva Intl. Film Festival – Giff for short – in a rebrand that spoke to executive/artistic director Cuenod’s view of the industry and his festival’s role within it.

The industry, he felt, was undergoing significant changes. “Today,” explains Cuenod, “the word film has a broader definition.” Whereas the festival...

Chicago – The Chicago International Film Festival is competitive, and the 54th edition presented its awards on October 19th, 2018, at the AMC River East Theatre in Chicago. The winner of the Gold Hugo as Best Film was “Happy as Lazzaro” (Italy/Switzerland/Germany/France), directed by Alice Rohrwacher.

The 54th Chicago International Film Festival Awards Night was October 19th, 2018

Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival

The awards event was hosted by entertainment reporter Bill Zwecker. Presenters included Artistic Director Mimi Plauché, programmers Anthony Kaufman and Sam Flancher, plus various jury members. Festival CEO Michael Kutza presented his “Founder’s Award.” The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named for the mythical God of Discovery.

International Feature Film Competition

’Happy as Lazzaro,’ Directed by Alice Rohrwacher

Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival

The Gold Hugo for Best Film: “Happy as Lazzaro,” (Italy/Switzerland/Germany/France) Directed by Alice Rohrwacher

The...

Chicago – Day Eight of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) on Wednesday, October 17th, 2018, is filled with two categories of competition films – six in New Directors and three in the International Competition, plus three more “Masters” films, the latest work from today’s most accomplished filmmakers.

’Shoplifters’ on Day Eight of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival

Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival/Magnolia Pictures

Events The emphasis is on the New Directors Competition, as six films will be screened on Wednesday. “The Belly of the Whale” is a caper action film from Ireland involving a heist; “Little Tickles” is from France, about a woman who reclaims her power through her art; “Miriam Lies” is a co-produced film from Spain and the Dominican Republic about the title character facing her own biases; “The Third Wife” is from Vietnam, set there in the 19th Century, as a landowner’s third...

Other winners include Guillaume Senez and Jafar Panahi.

Belgium’s Guillaume Senez, Iceland’s Benedikt Erlingsson and Iran’s Jafar Panahi were among the award-winners at this year’s Filmfest Hamburg, which ended yesterday (6 October).

The Art Cinema Award went to Benedikt Erlingsson’s political comedy Woman At War which opened the Filmfest on 26 September and will be released in German cinemas by Pandora Filmverleih.

Senez’s second feature Our Battles (his debut was Keeper) won the Critics’ Choice Award which was presented for the first time in collaboration with the Association of German Film Critics (Vdfk).

The family drama...

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,...

A French drama about childhood sexual abuse and its toxic consequences, Little Tickles (Les chatouilles) is the kind of mess of a movie that wins you over with its sincerity and passion, as well as its bold bursts of humor. The film stars and is co-directed by Andrea Bescond (with Eric Metayer), based on her autobiographical one-woman show, and the result bristles with the intimacy and intensity of lived experience; you want to forgive all the missteps and moments of overreaching. Premiering in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar, this admirable, risk-taking debut certainly has enough going for it to recommend distribution ...

A French drama about childhood sexual abuse and its toxic consequences, Little Tickles (Les chatouilles) is the kind of mess of a movie that wins you over with its sincerity and passion, as well as its bold bursts of humor. The film stars and is co-directed by Andrea Bescond (with Eric Metayer), based on her autobiographical one-woman show, and the result bristles with the intimacy and intensity of lived experience; you want to forgive all the missteps and moments of overreaching. Premiering in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar, this admirable, risk-taking debut certainly has enough going for it to recommend distribution ...

UniFrance hosts talks 9:30 a.m. May 13 with New Faces of French Cinema at the UniFrance Terrace.

Leïla Bekhti

“Sink or Swim”

After debuting with supporting roles in such films as the gonzo-horror pic “Sheitan” and offering the sole female presence in macho juggernaut “A Prophet,” actress Bekhti became movie star Bekhti with the release of her 2010 comedy “All That Glitters.” Though that breakthrough role landed her a César and increased her box-office clout, the Parisian has not allowed herself to get too comfortable in any one gear.

“All my roles have to scare me,” she says. “Fear is reassuring; if one day I arrived on set and didn’t feel a bit afraid, that would be the end. Being afraid doesn’t stop me, it pushes me forward.”

So she has continually sought out first-time filmmakers, and is trying her hand at producing, developing a feature with theater director Julie Duclos.

Launched six months ago, Orange Studio’s international sales division will be hitting Cannes Film Festival with three movies across various selections, including a pair of new acquisitions, Guillaume Nicloux’s Directors’ Fortnight player “To the Ends of the World” and “Rafiki” (pictured), Wanuri Kahiu’s Lgbt love story slated for Un Certain Regard.

“Rafiki” has just been banned by authorities in Kenya where homosexuality is illegal. Adapted from “Jambula Tree,” a short story by Uganda’s Monica Arac de Nyeko, the film tells the story of two teenage girls whose developing romance put them at odds with their families and community.

Météore Films will release “Rafiki” in France. Andrei Kamarowsky, who heads up Orange Studio’s international sales division with Emilie Serres, pointed out “Rafiki” will be the first Kenyan movie to be presented at Cannes Film Festival.

Orange Studio has also acquired international sales rights to...

The Festival de Cannes has announced the lineup for the official selection, including the Competition and Un Certain Regard sections, as well as special screenings, for the 71st edition of the festival:COMPETITIONEverybody Knows (Asghar Farhadi)At War (Stéphane Brizé)Dogman (Matteo Garrone)Le livre d'images (Jean-Luc Godard)Netemo Sameteo (Asako I & II) (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)Sorry Angel (Christophe Honoré)Girls of the Sun (Eva Husson)Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)Shoplifter (Hirokazu Kore-eda)Capernaum (Nadine Labaki)Burning (Lee Chang-dong)BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee)Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)Three Faces (Jafar Panahi)Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski)Lazzaro Felice (Alice Rohrwacher)Yomeddine (A.B. Shawky)Leto (Kirill Serebrennikov)Un couteau dans le cœur (Yann Gonzalez)Ayka (Sergei Dvortsevoy)The Wild Pear Tree (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)Out Of COMPETITIONSolo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard)Le grand bain (Gilles Lelouch)The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier)Un Certain REGARDGräns (Ali Abbasi...