News

Italian star Luisa Ranieri, who played the emotionally troubled Aunt Patrizia in Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” has joined the cast of the Johnny Depp-directed film “Modì,” about Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. The film has started shooting in Budapest.

Ranieri is starring in “Modì” alongside fellow Italian Riccardo Scamarcio, who plays the bad boy painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France and became famous for the groundbreaking modern style of his portraits and nudes. Al Pacino plays international art collector Maurice Gangnat, while French actor Pierre Niney (“Yves Saint Laurent”) portrays French artist Maurice Utrillo, who was Modigliani’s close friend.

Ranieri is playing Rosalie, the owner of an Italian café in Paris whom Modigliani painted. According to lore about the dissolute Italian artist who died at 35, Rosalie also acted as his mother, looking after Modigliani when he was drunk or so out of money that...

The blockbuster French cast of Amazon Prime Video’s third season of “Lol: Qui rit, qui sort” speaks volumes about the Japanese variety format’s tremendous popularity in France.

The Amazon Original series, adapted from the format “Lol: Last One Laughing,” scored its biggest launch to date on Prime Video in France since bowing on March 10. The show is one of the streamer’s first unscripted originals in France and has been a major coup as a brand exercise that’s succeeded with limited resources — certainly in comparison to scripted comedy. Adaptations of “Lol” have also thrived in Italy and Germany where they have ranked as the most watched local titles on the service, respectively. Local versions are also available in Spain, Canada, Mexico and Australia (hosted by Rebel Wilson).

On the heels of its milestone success with “Lol: Qui rit, qui sort,” the French teams at Amazon Studios are...

Orange Studio, the Paris-based film and TV arm of France’s leading telco operator Orange, has poached Charlotte Boucon, Snd’s longtime international sales topper.

Boucon will be head of world sales for Orange Studio starting on Sept. 1 and will report to Kristina Zimmermann, managing director of the French studio.

Under the newly-created role, Boucon will spearhead all of the commercial activities of Orange Studio’s film branch, notably international sales, video, VOD and TV. The department’s staff includes Emilie Serres, the deputy head of sales at Orange Studio. Boucon will also work with David Marquet, a veteran sales executive who ran the department for a number of years.

Boucon joined Snd, the commercial division of the French TV network M6, in 2008 after graduating from the Edhec Business School and headed the group’s international distribution since 2015. While at Snd, Boucon sold a number of hit movies around the world,...

Exclusive: After 15 years as co-ceo of international production group Umedia, Adrian Politowski has stepped down to launch La-based production and finance outfit Align. The new company, co-founded by Umedia’s Nadia Khamlichi, intends to deploy $150M from now through 2022, focusing on three-five English-language projects per year across film and television, and with budgets in the $5M-$30M range. Align is backed by its officers as well as high-net-worth individuals out of Europe.

The company’s first project to launch, Blithe Spirit, began principal photography last week. A comedy, it’s directed by Downton Abbey’s Edward Hall and stars Leslie Mann, Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher and Judi Dench. Align is majority financing with additional equity secured by Fred Films.

Politowski tells me that after working with dozens of titles a year at Umedia, he “wanted to produce fewer films and be much more involved in them.” Khamlichi, with whom he co-founded Umedia,...

Deals in Germany, Italy, Spain, Asia for film co-starring Kristin Scott Thomas.

Source: TF1 Studio

‘In Your Hands’

TF1 Studio has announced first sales on French director Ludovic Bernard’s drama In Your Hands starring Jules Benchetrit as a talented young pianist, with a tearaway streak, struggling to fulfil his full potential.

The feature has sold to Germany (Neue Visionen), Italy (Cinema), Spain (Avalon), Belgium (Splendid Film), Switzerland (Pathé), Japan (Ccc), South Korea (Cinema de Manon) and Taiwan (Creative Century Entertainment).

TF1 Studio film team, led by Sabine Chemaly, kicked off sales on the production at the Afm last November.

Screen can also reveal a first look of Benchetrit in the lead role of Mathieu, a troublemaker from a poor background with a special talent for the piano.

Lambert Wilson co-stars as a music school director, who is captivated by Mathieu’s playing on a public piano in a train station in Paris and decides to help him...

Author: Stefan Pape

Back in January we were fortunate enough to spend a weekend in Paris, interviewing some of the biggest names in French cinema (Isabelle Huppert Ftw) – but none were quite as enjoyable to meet than Guillaume Gallienne. “Do you have a spare fag?” he asked when I walked in – in a near-perfect English accent I had perceived to be a piss-take, mimicking my dialect ahead of our time together. But it wasn’t, for Gallienne is a classically trained theatre act-or – part of La Comédie Francaise – who even spent time living in Britain. His English, at times, was even better than mine.

“I was in England between the ages 13-16, I took my O-Levels there in a boarding school in Hampshire,” he said. “I had English nannies before when I was young. One of them forbid me from running in the rain. Very strange. She found it very common,...

Second edition of high-end drama showcase featured 12 upcoming shows.

Brazilian prison drama Jailers and Tom Tykwer’s ambitious detective tale Babylon Berlin, capturing the city in the Golden Twenties, clinched the grand jury awards in the full episode and work-in-progress categories at MIPDrama Screenings on Sunday.

Unfolding on the eve of Miptv, the second edition of the showcase put the spotlight on 12 upcoming drama shows, screening either full episodes or extracts as a work-in-progress.

“There is a lot of commercial pressure to do a certain type of drama series but what really struck me was the diversity and originality of all these shows… every one of them was very unique and defied simple expectations,” jury member Frank Spotnitz, creator of hit series such as The Man In The High Castle and Medici: Masters Of Florence, said.

Also on the jury were The Bridge producer Lars Blomgren, writer Virginie Brac (Cannabis, Spiral), director...

Second edition of high-end drama showcase featured 12 upcoming shows.

Brazilian prison drama Jailers and Tom Tykwer’s ambitious detective tale Babylon Berlin, capturing the city in the Golden Twenties, clinched the grand jury awards in the full episode and work-in-progress categories at MIPDrama Screenings on Sunday.

Unfolding on the eve of Miptv, the second edition of the showcase put the spotlight on 12 upcoming drama shows, screening either full episodes or extracts as a work-in-progress.

“There is a lot of commercial pressure to do a certain type of drama series but what really struck me was the diversity and originality of all these shows… every one of them was very unique and defied simple expectations,” jury member Frank Spotnitz, creator of hit series such as The Man In The High Castle and Medici: Masters Of Florence, said.

Also on the jury were The Bridge producer Lars Blomgren, writer Virginie Brac (Cannabis, Spiral), director...

Guillaume Gallienne: "The script had all the elements, the love and trust of Danièle." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Danièle Thompson's Cézanne Et Moi, starring Guillaume Gallienne as Paul Cézanne and Guillaume Canet as Émile Zola, had its New York premiere on Wednesday, hosted by Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller at The Whitby Hotel, where I had spoken to Wilson director Craig Johnson, screenwriter Daniel Clowes, Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, Judy Greer and Isabella Amara.

The women in Cézanne's life were his mother Anne-Elisabeth (Sabine Azéma) and wife Hortense (Déborah François also in Claude Lelouch's latest Chacun sa vie). For Zola, his mother Émilie (Isabelle Candelier), wife Alexandrine (Alice Pol -Lelouch's Un + une), and mistress Jeanne (Freya Mavor). Guillaume Gallienne, who played Pierre Bergé in Jalil Lespert's Yves Saint Laurent gave some clarity into his vision of Cézanne, his relationship to Zola, and the women around them.

Déborah François...

For the twenty-second year in a row, The Film Society of Lincoln Center and UniFrance have lined up a sparkling slate for their Rendez-Vous with French Cinema screening series, which aims to showcase “the variety and vitality of contemporary French filmmaking.” This year’s programming, including the selected films, panels, and events, includes a special focus on the myriad of ways that French culture influences the arts in America, and vice-versa.

The lineup features 23 diverse films, comprised of highlights from international festivals and works by both established favorites and talented newcomers. The series runs from March 1 – 12.

Read More: Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Exclusive Trailer: Annual Series Celebrates the Very Best in Contemporary French Cinema

Ahead, check out the 6 titles and events we are most excited to check out at this year’s screening series.

“Frantz”

Screwball comedy master Ernst Lubitsch took a rare stab at straight drama with 1932’s “Broken Lullaby,...

"What would the truth bring?" "Only more pain." Music Box Films has released a new official Us trailer for the indie film Frantz, the latest film from prolific French director François Ozon. This played at the Venice and Telluride Film Festival last fall to very positive reviews, and it also played at the Sundance Film Festival this January. Frantz is set after Wwi, but before WWII, in Germany with a story about two people who connect after the first Great War. French actor Pierre Niney, star of the biopic Yves Saint Laurent, plays the French man who comes to a small German town and places flowers on the grave of a deceased man named Frantz. There he meets Frantz's widow Anna, played by German actress Paula Beer. Also starring Ernst Stötzner, Marie Gruber, Johann von Bülow, Anton von Lucke & Cyrielle Clair. See below. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Francois Ozon's Frantz,...

Continuing his prolific streak, the U.S. trailer has landed for Frantz, the latest drama from François Ozon. Shot in striking black and white, the film — which premiered at Venice, and played Telluride, Tiff, Sundance, and more — follows a grieving German widow in the wake of Wwi whose interest is piqued by a Frenchman with apparent ties to her late husband. Filled with intrigue, loss, and romance, Frantz looks to be a striking drama with a lush palette. Pascal Marti‘s cinematography is on full display, offering haunting frames and beautiful compositions to accompany the film’s tangled web.

We said in our review, “One can accuse François Ozon of many things, but lack of ideas isn’t one of them. The prolific French auteur is a constant presence at A-list film festivals since the late 90’s and has proved to be a true writer’s director, with his films...

This year's costume design lineup is a mix of three two time nominees (Johnston, previously nominated for Lincoln, Boyle, previously nominated for The Queen, and Zophres, previously nominated for True Grit), one of Oscar's all time favorites (three time winner Atwood), and the new-to-Oscar  Madeline Fontaine from France who designed the costumes of Jackie and was previously best known for costuming French pictures like Amelie and Yves Saint Laurent.

Who would you vote for and who do you think might win?

This category doesn't feel entirely easy to predict this year. La La Land will surely win at least a handful of Oscars but will Costume Design be one of them?  Zophres does simplicity beautifully but Oscar voters tend to prefer Most to Best. Johnston probably wins the "most beautiful costumes" prize for the very Old Hollywood stylish Allied but she's the only nominee whose film has no support from...

Exclusive: Company also due to launch sales on Nicloux’s To The Ends Of The Earth and Roland Møller-starrer A Bluebird In My Heart.

Paris-based Alma Cinema has boarded sales on Swedish-Iranian director Milad Alami’s debut Copenhagen-set feature The Charmer about a young Iranian man desperately searching for a local woman who will help him stay in Denmark.

Ardalan Esmaili stars in the intense psychological drama as the protagonist who finds love with one woman but also falls foul of a man whose wife he has also attempted to woo.

It marks Alami’s first feature after a series of award-winning shorts including Nothing Can Touch Me and Void, which played in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2014 as a part of the Nordic Factory initiative.

“It’s a really touching film. The director is absolutely extraordinary. I think he’s got what it takes to be a new Joachim Trier or Michaël R. Roskam,” said Alma Cinema...

Exclusive: Company also due to launch sales on Guillaume Nicloux’s To The Ends Of The Earth and Roland Møller-starrer A Bluebird In My Heart.

Paris-based Alma Cinema has boarded sales on Swedish-Iranian director Milad Alami’s debut Copenhagen-set feature The Charmer about a young Iranian man desperately searching for a local woman who will help him stay in Denmark.

Ardalan Esmaili stars in the intense psychological drama as the protagonist who finds love with one woman but also falls foul of a man whose wife he has also attempted to woo.

It marks Alami’s first feature after a series of award-winning shorts including Nothing Can Touch Me and Void, which played in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2014 as a part of the Nordic Factory initiative.

The Charmer

“It’s a really touching film. The director is absolutely extraordinary. I think he’s got what it takes to be a new Joachim Trier,” said Alma Cinema...

Screwball comedy master Ernst Lubitsch took a rare stab at straight drama with 1932’s “Broken Lullaby,” the tense story of a soldier who attempts to make amends with the family of a man he killed in World War I. Preeminent French director François Ozon also wanders into unconventional territory with “Frantz,” his astonishingly beautiful and inquisitive remake of Lubitsch’s film, using it as a springboard for a profound look at alienation and grief.

Ozon captures much of the original movie’s strengths while broadening its themes, launching into richer territory with his most polished storytelling achievement since 2004’s “Swimming Pool.” While the entirety of “Frantz” holds less appeal than its gorgeous ingredients, it’s impossible to deny the sheer narrative sophistication that makes this gentle story much more than your average retread.

Largely set in the small German mountain town of Quedlingburg, the mostly black-and-white “Frantz” takes place in...

One can accuse François Ozon of many things, but lack of ideas isn’t one of them. The prolific French auteur is a constant presence at A-list film festivals since the late 90’s and has proved to be a true writer’s director, with his films often characterized by a meticulous construction and the vigorous thought process that goes on behind it. His latest, a remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby with a twist, juxtaposes themes of grief, guilt, forgiveness, and the deceptive, self-inventive qualities of narrative against the backdrop of post-wwi Franco-German tensions. It’s a heady hall of mirrors that keeps revealing, or at least suggesting new depths and angles. But while this kind of intense creative exercise no doubt deserves respect, ultimately one has the uneasy sense that things don’t really add up.

The movie begins as we meet Anna (Paula Beer) in the German town of Quedlinburg,...

Biopic based on the life of Jacques Cousteau.

The 64th San Sebastian Festival (Sept 14-24) is to close with the world premiere of The Odyssey, a film based on the life of Jacques Cousteau, written and directed by Jérôme Salle.

The €35m film looks at the challenging relationship between the underwater exploration pioneer and his son Philippe. The screenplay is based on the books Mon père, le Commandant Jacques-Yves Cousteau, by Jean Michel Cousteau, and Capitaine de la Calypso, by Albert Falco.

Salle is perhaps best known for writing action romance The Tourist, starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, and directing both Cannes 2013 closer Zulu and César-nominated Anthony Zimmer, which starred Sophie Marceau.

The Odyssey stars Lambert Wilson, Pierre Niney and Audrey Tautou in the parts of Cousteau, his son Philippe and his wife, respectively.

Wilson’s, known for performances in Xabier Beauvois’ Of Gods and Men and André Téchiné’s Rendez-vous, will make his...

Fifty Shades Of Grey star Jamie Dornan talks Anthropoid Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

At Bleecker Street's Anthropoid première in New York with Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan, Anna Geislerová, Charlotte Le Bon and director Sean Ellis - attended by Pico Alexander, Christian Campbell, America Olivo, Pia Glenn, Christine Jansing, Laura Michelle Kelly, Michael Mailer, Jason Mann, Thomas Matthews and Dan Abrams - I spoke with the very busy actors.

Charlotte Le Bon's upcoming films include Terry George's The Promise, starring Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac; Mateo Gil's Realive with Tom Hughes and Oona Chaplin, and Jalil Lespert's Iris, opposite Romain Duris. Jamie Dornan will soon be seen in Alexandre Aja's The 9th Life Of Louis Drax with Sarah Gadon and Aaron Paul.

Charlotte Le Bon, memorable in Yves Saint Laurent, The Walk and Mood Indigo Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Sean Ellis's Anthropoid is "based...

The tension between science and religion rages on far into the 21st century, but the two have been in conflict with each other since the beginning. The new film “Finding Altamira,” directed by Hugh Hudson (“Chariots of Fire”), places that conflict at its center. Antonio Banderas stars as Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola y de la Pedrueca, an archaeologist who in 1878 accidentally discovers a cave filled with ancient paintings. When it turns out that the art is over 10,000 years old, it inspires wrath and condemnation from religious and scientific communities who refuse to accept their conception of human history has been flawed. Now, Marcelino must choose to do what’s right, even though it might put his family and reputation in jeopardy. The film also stars Golshifteh Farahani (“About Elly”), Rupert Everett (“Shakespeare In Love”), Pierre Niney (“Yves Saint Laurent”), and more. Watch a trailer for the film below.

Antonio Banderas...

A fake movie busted out into reality! But this not-even would-be jokey riff on Hollywood doesn’t know how to fill the air between car chases and punchups. I’m “biast” (pro): Idris Elba is badass (this is Fact)

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

It’s like a fake movie within a real movie somehow busted out into the real world. Jumped off the shelves of the video rental store in The Lost World: Jurassic Park and wished itself real, perhaps. Like Pinocchio. Bastille Day! Starring Idris Elba and that one guy from Game of Thrones who got killed off like three years ago! Grab a holiday that no one has yet foisted a movie plot onto, toss in a badass actor ready for his action-hero breakout, give him a bland sidekick, set it in a recognizable but still slightly exotic location,...

Franz

Director: François Ozon

Writer: François Ozon

Ex-terrible enfant is a perennial favorite on the festival circuit (2015 was only the third year in the past fifteen years of filmmaking where François Ozon didn’t unveil a new title). His prolific output sees him unveiling at a variety of prestigious festivals, having competed twice at Cannes (2003, 2013), four times in Berlin, and twice in Venice. His latest was 2014’s The New Girlfriend, a playful if rather anachronistic narrative featuring outmoded psychological presentations of gender identity (it premiered in Toronto, another platform Ozon has been known to premiere at). In time for 2016, Ozon has been working on a historical drama, the German co-production Franz, headlined by recent Cesar winner Pierre Niney (Yves Saint Laurent). As usual, confirmations of the exact narrative have been kept under wraps by Ozon.

Cast: Pierre Niney, Paula Beer, Cyrielle Claire

Production Co./Producers: Mandarin’s Eric and Nicolas Altmayer,...

Puts CGI, IMAX, and 3D (and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to perfect use. Everything here comes with a vertiginous thrill and a delightful enchantment. I’m “biast” (pro): love Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

I have not read the source material

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

The story of Philippe Petit’s daring high-wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974 is not a new one to New Yorkers or to film lovers: it was the subject of 2008’s Oscar-winning best documentary feature, Man on Wire (see it if you haven’t already; it’s currently on Netflix and Amazon Prime in the U.S., though not in Canada or the U.K.). But we haven’t seen that story like this before. Robert Zemeckis has been a cinematic fantasist of the highest order, using magical FX to tell wondrous...

Chicago – The 5th annual Chicago French Film Festival is six days of beret-wearing cinema, taking place July 31st-August 5th, 2015, at the historic Music Box Theatre in Chicago. The opening night film at 7pm is “Le Affaire SK1.”

“SK1” is French police jargon for “Serial Killer 1,” the codename given in the 1990s to a rapist and murderer who preyed on young women in eastern Paris. The culprit was not the country’s first serial killer, but he was the first to be caught via DNA analysis — even if cops had to overcome years of bureaucratic bungling and bad luck to finally get to him. The debonair Raphael Personnaz stars as an obsessive detective who finds his personal and professional lives upended by the case. “Le Affaire SK1” will be followed by “The King and the Mockingbird” at 9pm.

’Le Affaire SK1’ is the Opening Night Film at the Chicago French Film...

Jamie Dornan's latest role couldn't be more different to Christian Grey. The actor and Cillian Murphy have been pictured filming war drama Anthropoid in Prague.

Dornan will star in the film as a Czechoslovakian soldier who plots to assassinate the SS officer Reinhard Heydrich, who was nicknamed The Butcher of Prague.

The Fifty Shades of Grey actor and Murphy (Peaky Blinders) are joined in the cast by Charlotte Le Bon (Yves Saint Laurent), Anna Geislerová (Something Like Happiness), Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones) and Bill Milner (X-Men: First Class).

Director Sean Ellis said of the film: "This has been a 14 year journey to get Anthropoid to the screen. I'm incredibly proud and happy to finally tell this important story about Czech resistance during World War II."

Filming for Anthropoid began earlier this month in Prague, with the film set for release at some...

Toby Jones, Harry Lloyd, Bill Milner and Alena Mihulová join Jamie Dornan, Cillian Murphy, Anna Geislerová and Charlotte Le Bon in Sean Ellis’ Second World War thriller.

Principal photography has begun in the Czech Republic on Anthropoid, a Second World War thriller starring Jamie Dornan (50 Shades Of Grey) and Cillian Murphy (Inception) from Metro Manila director Sean Ellis.

New cast members to sign up to the production include Toby Jones (Infamous), Harry Lloyd (The Theory of Everything), Bill Milner (X-Men: First Class, Son of Rambow), Alena Mihulova and Sam Keeley.

They join Dornan, Murphy, Charlotte Le Bon (Yves Saint Laurent) and Anna Geislerová (Something Like Happiness).

The film is based on the true story of two Czech soldiers - played by Dornan and Murphy - sent to assassinate the head of the SS in 1941.

SS General Reinhard Heydrich was second only to Himmler and Hitler in the Third Reich’s hierarchy and main architect for the ‘Final Solution...

Mickey Liddell's Ld Entertainment has boarded as a financier and producer on Sean Ellis’ Anthropoid, starring Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades Of Grey) and Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders). Also joining the previously announced cast is Charlotte Le Bon (Yves Saint Laurent). Ellis (Metro Manila) also co-wrote the script with Anthony Frewin (Colour Me Kubrick: A True…ish Story). Principal photography will begin on July 13 in Prague. The film tells the story of how the Allied…...

In the case of the rivaling Yves Saint Laurent biopics, Bertrand Bonello’s “Saint Laurent” is the show-offy stepchild of the two. Bonello’s film covers more decades in the iconic fashion designer’s life, boasts the glitzier cast, and, most importantly, was named France’s Oscar submission for the most recent Foreign Language Film category. Still, it’s last year’s “Yves Saint Laurent,” directed by Jalil Lespert, that’s won the support of Pierre Bergé, the deceased designer’s longtime business partner and sometimes lover. Bergé loaned Lespert’s production dozens of ensembles from the fashion house’s vintage collections,...

In the movie world, Yves Saint Laurent — the human being, not the brand — is having a moment: Jalil Lespert's Yves Saint Laurent, starring the willowy-awkward Pierre Niney, was released last year. Now we have Bertrand Bonello's Saint Laurent, in which the genius designer is played by the slightly more robust Gaspard Ulliel. Saint Laurent focuses on the years 1967 to 1976, when the designer was at his peak, clubbing his nights away with chic pals like Loulou de la Falaise and Betty Catroux (Léa Seydoux and Aymeline Valade) and, by day, mining Forties movie-star style and the Ballets Russes for fashion inspiration. But if you don't know much about Saint Laurent's life, you may find yourself lost: Bonello attempts a fractured...

Once again, Make it the Same Only New

With this biopic on the great French fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent, Bertrand Bonello streamlines for himself a reputation as one of contemporary cinema’s keenest voices on the concept of time. Coming off his Palme d’Or-contending masterpiece, House of Tolerance – a film concerned with the dichotomy between slow and rapid evolutions of people, places, and culture – Bonello once again sweeps across years of a life in a startlingly arrhythmic procession. The central theme in this case is re-materialization, namely, Saint Laurent’s propensity for reinvigorating the status quo by injecting it with the new. Unfortunately, one of the prime examples in Saint Laurent’s life of this trait was in his reliance on various mind-altering drugs – a chapter of his life that consumes and befouls roughly a full hour of the lengthy, two-and-a-half hour dalliance.

Chalk that up to the...

Words With Friends: Gozlan’s Stylish Noir all Amalgamated Pulp

Enjoyably anxious, director Yann Gozlan’s sophomore feature A Perfect Man (Un homme idéal) would better recall suspense masters like Hitchcock or Chabrol if its narrative felt a little less familiar. As such, it seems more like the B noir cousin of the cinema Gozlan is in conversation with rather than a revisionist take on one of cinema’s greatest femme fatales—karma. Featuring an excellent lead performance from recent Cesar award winning actor Pierre Niney, there’s much to admire even as Gozlan overdoses with increasing complications that hinge on the ludicrous.

Mathieu Vasseur (Niney) is an aspiring novelist, whose first manuscript, The Man From Behind, has been promptly rejected by publishers. Working vaguely as some sort of janitorial staff and/or garbage man, Vasseur stumbles into a lecture being given about scent’s relationship to memory and literature...

Read More: Gaspard Ulliel on Becoming 'Saint Laurent' and Kissing Louis Garrel Iconic French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent has already gotten the biopic treatment courtesy of Jalil Lespert's eponymous drama last summer, but that isn't stopping director Bertrand Bonello from giving audiences his own spin on the wild life of the fashion visionary. Starring Gaspard Ulliel in the titular role, "Saint Laurent" tracks the life and inspirations of the designer who forever changed the world of haute couture. The film was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics soon after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last year. "Saint Laurent" co-stars Lea Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Helmut Berger and Dominique Sanda. Spc will be kicking off their summer slate by releasing the film on May 8. Read More: Sony Pictures Classics Acquires 'Saint Laurent' Biopic at Cannes...

Opening in select theaters May 8, Gaspard Ulliel is Yves Saint Laurent in the first trailer for Sony Pictures Classics’ Saint Laurent, a film by Bertrand Bonello.

1967-1976. As one of history’s greatest fashion designers entered a decade of freedom, neither came out of it in one piece.

(Yahoo! Movies)

Why did the filmmakers restrict themselves to ten years in Saint Laurent’s life and career, between 1967 and 1976? The director says, “we chose to restrict ourselves to two emblematic collections, the Liberation collection in 1971 and the Russian Ballet collection in 1976. The first provoked outrage: in 1971, with hippie chic booming, Saint Laurent dressed women like their mothers, drawing on his passion for his own, for 1940s movie stars and so on. The newspapers were in uproar, but six months later everybody was wearing vintage. As for the second collection, it has oriental influences, from Gauguin, Delacroix, Matisse, to the Russian Orient.

Film is nominated for Oscar in foreign language category. Kristen Stewart and Sean Penn also win Césars.

Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu picked up seven awards at France’s César ceremony in Paris on Friday evening (February 20), including best film and best director.

The film, inspired by the stoning to death of an unmarried couple with children by Islamists in northern Mali in 2012, has gained fresh resonance in France following the deadly attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January.

The picture also picked up awards for its screenplay, sound, editing and cinematography while celebrated Tunisian composer Amine Bouhafa clinched the César for best original score.

Timbuktu is in the running for an Oscar in the foreign language category on Sunday night, alongside Ida, Leviathan, Tangerines and Wild Tales.

Another top winner at Friday’s ceremony was Thomas Cailley’s Love At First Fight (Les Combattants), about the relationship that blooms on an army assault course. It won for...

The 40th annual César Awards (i.e., the French Oscar equivalent) were bestowed in Paris Friday, with "Timbuktu" claiming top honors. The film, Oscar-nominated in the foreign category as Mauritania's first-ever submission, won seven awards overall and is seen as a potential spoiler at the Oscars on Sunday. Also of note, Kristen Stewart, who had already become the first American actress to receive a César nomination in 30 years, went on to win the supporting actress prize for her performance in "Sils Maria." That makes her the first American actress to ever win a César (and the first American period since Adrien Brody in 2003). Perhaps that will set her up as someone to watch out for at the Oscars next year, but that might be tricky with an April Us release. Check out the full list of winners below, the nominees here and the rest of the season at The Circuit.

Cesar Awards, in progress Best Actress Adèle Haenel, Les Combattants Best Actor Pierre Niney, Yves Saint Laurent Best Foreign Film Mommy, dir Xavier Dolan Best Director Abderrahmane Sissako, Timbuktu Best Supporting Actress Kristen Stewart,...

Franco-Mauritanian Abderrahmane Sissako Timbuktu has clinched best film and best director at the Lumière Awards, France’s version of the Golden Globes.

The Oscar-nominated film, about the impact of Islamic fundamentalism on a rural community in Mali, has taken on new resonance in France following a series of terrorist attacks by extremists in Paris last month.

The other contenders for best film comprised Bertrand Bonello’s Yves Saint Laurent biopic Saint Laurent, Benoît Jacquot’s 3 Hearts, Eric Lartigau’s La Famille Bélier, Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood (Bande de Fille) and Lucas Belvaux’s Not My Type (Pas Mon Genre).

Belgian Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night - for which lead actress Marion Cotillard is nominated for an a best actress academy award - won the best prize for best foreign, Francophone film.

Best script went to Philippe de Chauveron and Guy Laurent for hit multiracialism comedy Serial (Bad) Weddings (Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait...

• Penelope Cruz and Diane Kruger are in final negotiations for This Man, This Woman. Isabel Coixet is directing from a script by Frederic Raphael. The story follows Matt Heller and Martha Parks (Cruz), a former romantic item who look back on their roller coaster past when they run into each other on a plane. Kruger takes the role of a talk show host, Kirsty Sachs, who has an affair with Heller, and alters his relationship with Parks as a result. [Deadline] • Geoffrey Rush will star as Lionel Bart in Vadim Jean's musical feature, Consider Yourself. Bart was a composer and...

It was a battle of Yves Saint Laurent biopics at the Césars (the French Oscars, if you will) this year as both the French foreign language Oscar submission "Saint Laurent" (leader of the pack with 10 nods) and "Yves Saint Laurent" picked up a ton of mentions. Oscar players that popped up include "Two Days, One Night" star Marion Cotillard and animated feature "Song of the Sea." Foreign film Oscar nominee "Timbuktu" also had a major showing. And of course, in the Césars' foreign category, films like "Boyhood," "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and "12 Years a Slave" are duking it out. Check out the full list of nominees below, and remember to keep track of it all at The Circuit. Best Film "Les Combattants" "Eastern Boys" "La Famille Bélier" "Saint Laurent" "Hippocrate" "Sils Maria" "Timbuktu" Best Director Céline Sciamma, "Bande De Filles" Thomas Cailley, "Les Combattants" Robin Campillo, "Eastern Boys" Thomas Lilti,...

Glenn here while Nathaniel is travelling back from the wonders of Sundance. I do so enjoy looking at national awards since they paint such a gloriously global view of the film world that most of the American award bodies simply do not even attempt. They're always a good way of finding out about films that may otherwise go unnoticed in the ever-expanding world of film festivals (increasingly the only way to see many of these films, anyway) and a great way of finding the next big thing to which you can tell your friends and colleagues, "I saw them first in that tiny foreign film."

This year's César Awards from France have announced their nominations and it's a handsome looking bunch, even if I've only seen a few of the actual nominees (again, blame those tricky new age distribution methods and diminishing foreign indie market). I was super happy to...

Catherine Deneuve, best actress nominee for In The Courtyard by Pierre Salvadori

One of the soaraway successes of today’s announcement in Paris (28 January) of the César nominations was Thomas Cailley’s Love At First Fight (Les Combattants), which picked up now fewer than nine nominations for the director’s film.

It had already made an auspicious debut at last year’s Cannes Film Festival where it won a crop of prizes due for a UK release through Curzon Artificial Eye later this year, and as with many of the other nominees featured in last year’s French Film Festival UK.

Other prominent contenders in the list revealed by Alain Terzian, the president of the Academy, at Fouquet’s restaurant on the Champs Elysées included Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent with ten nominations including best film,best actor (for Gaspard Ulliel) and best director. The other Yves Saint Laurent film,...

Designer biopic leads the pack with 10 nominations; Kristen Stewart, Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche in the running for actress awards.Scroll down for full list of nominees

Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent and Olivier Assays’ Sils Maria are the hot favourites in France’s 40th annual Cesar awards.

France’s Academy of Cinema Arts and Sciences unveiled the nominations for this year’s César Awards at its traditional news conference at Le Fouquet’s restaurant on the Champs Elysées on Friday morning.

Biopic Saint Laurent - exploring fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent’s life from 1967 to 1976 - led the pack with 10 nominations including best film, best director for Bonello, best actor for Gaspard Ulliel and best supporting actor for Louis Garrel.

Jalil Lespert’s rival biopic, Yves Saint Laurent, secured seven nominations. While it missed out in the best film and director categories, it scored nods with Pierre Niney for best actor, Charlotte Le Bon for best...

Update, 2:25 Am Pt: Last year’s dueling Yves Saint Laurent biopics each picked up several nominations this morning for France’s César Awards. Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent, the country’s entry for the Foreign Language Oscar, leads the pack with 10 mentions, followed by Thomas Cailley’s Directors’ Fortnight title Les Combattants with nine, and Oscar nominee Timbuktu with eight. Yves Saint Laurent, from helmer Jalil Lespert, took seven nods. Otherwise, there are a number of usual suspects in the batch including Best Actress Oscar nominee Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night, as well as Juliette Binoche for Olivier Assayas’ Sils Maria. In something of a departure — and a first — for the French Académie, they nominated American actress Kristen Stewart for her supporting turn in that Cannes competition entry. (Adrien Brody won the Best Actor prize in 2003 for The Pianist.) There are also six nominations for late 2014 release La Famille Bélier.

France's Academy of Cinema Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for this year's Cesar Awards - the country's equivalent to the Oscars - in a morning ceremony at the famed Fouqet's restaurant on the Champs Elysees. Bertrand Bonello's Saint Laurent led with ten nominations including best film, best actor for Gaspard Ulliel and best director. The competing biopic Yves Saint Laurent from director Jalil Lespert received seven, including a nomination for best actor for Pierre Niney, though Lespert himself was left out. The Oscar-nominated Timbuktu received eight, including the best film, director for Abderrahmane Sissako and original screenplay categories. Thomas Cailley's Love at First Fight was the

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The nominations for France's Lumière Awards were announced this morning, and leading the way was the film's Oscar foreign film entry "Saint Laurent" (which sadly didn't make it past the initial culling with the Academy). The film picked up four nominations and will compete for best film with Cannes hit "Girlhood," "La Famille Bélier," "Pas son genre," fellow Oscar foreign hopeful "Timbuktu" and "Three Hearts." Check out the full list of nominees below. Winners will be announced on Feb. 3. And oh yeah: The Circuit. Best Film "Girlhood" "La Famille Bélier" "Pas son genre" "Saint Laurent" "Timbuktu" "Three Hearts" Best Director Lucas Belvaux, "Pas son genre" Bertrand Bonello, "Saint Laurent" Benoît Jacquot, "Three Hearts" Cédric Kahn, "Wild Life" Céline Sciamma,"Girlhood" Abderrahmane Sissako, "Timbuktu" Best Actor Guillaume Canet, "La prochaine fois je viserai le cœur," "In The Name of My Daughter" Romain Duris, "The New Girlfriend" Mathieu Kassovitz, "Wild Life" Pierre Niney,...

Two Days, One Night, Mommy and Fevers nominated in French-language foreign film category.Scroll down for full list of nominations

The Lumière Awards, France’s version of the Golden Globes, has announced the nominations for its 20th anniversary edition. There is no clear front-runner this year.

Bertrand Bonello’s Yves Saint Laurent biopic Saint Laurent, Benoît Jacquot’s 3 Hearts, starring Gainsbourg and Chiara Mastroianni as sisters who unwittingly fall for the same man, and Eric Lartigau’s Christmas hit La Famille Bélier, about an aspiring singer growing up in deaf family, lead the field with four nominations each including best film.

Céline Sciamma’s gritty urban drama Girlhood (Bande de Fille) and Lucas Belvaux’s chalk-and-cheese romance Not My Type(Pas Mon Genre) and, which were also nominated in the best film category, followed behind with three nominations.

Franco-Mauritanian Abderrahmane Sissako Timbuktu about the impact of Islamic fundamentalism on a rural community in Mali, is the sixth...

Birdman, Fury and Leviathan among main competition titles; Roland Joffé to preside over main jury.

Alejandro G Ińárritu, Yimou Zhang, Mike Leigh and Jean-Marc Vallée are among the directors with films screening in competition at the 22nd Camerimage (Nov 15-22), the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography.

The main competition at the festival, held in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, comprises:

Alejandro G Ińárritu’s Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); USA, 2014; Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki

Yimou Zhang’s Coming Home (Gui lai); China, 2014; Cinematographer: Zhao Xiaoding

Richard Raymond’s Desert Dancer; UK, 2014; Cinematographer: Carlos Catalán Alucha

Lech J. Majewski’s Field of Dogs - Onirica (Onirica - Psie pole); Poland, 2014; Cinematographers: Paweł Tybora and Lech J. Majewski

Krzysztof Zanussi’s Foreign Body (Obce cialo); Poland, Italy, Russia, 2014; Cinematographer: Piotr Niemyjski

David Ayer’s Fury; USA, 2014; Cinematographer: Roman Vasyanov

Tate Taylor’s Get on Up; USA, 2014; Cinematographer: Stephen Goldblatt

Łukasz Palkowski’s Gods (Bogowie); Poland, 2014; Cinematographer:...

Polish film festival sets competition juries; Roland Joffe to preside over main competition.

Camerimage (Nov 15-22), the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, has set an impressive roster of jurors for its various competition categories.

The Killing Fields director Roland Joffe will preside over the main competition jury, which incldues cinematographers Christian Berger and Manuel Alberto Claro.

Caleb Deschanel has been appointed president of the Polish Films Competition.

The full list of jurors is below.

Main Competition

Roland Joffé – Jury President (director, producer; The Killing Fields, The Mission, Vatel)

Christian Berger (cinematographer; The Piano Teacher, Hidden, The White Ribbon)

Ryszard Bugajski (director, screenwriter; Interrogation, General Nil, The Closed Circuit)

Ryszard Horowitz (photographer)

David Gropman (cinematographer; The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, Life of Pi)

Arthur Reinhart (cinematographer, producer; Crows, Tristan + Isolde, Venice)

Oliver Stapleton (cinematographer; The Cider House Rules, Pay It Forward, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark)

Manuel Alberto Claro (cinematographer; Reconstruction, Melancholia, Nymphomaniac...

Saint Laurent

Written by Bertrand Bonello and Thomas Bidegain

Directed by Bertrand Bonello

France, 2014

Great film direction can reflect great fashion. Unlike its direct competition, the earlier 2014 film Yves Saint Laurent, director and co-writer Bertrand Bonello portrays the fashion mogul with saturated palettes of grandeur in Saint Laurent. The prior film is directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Jalil Lespert, who,having less directorial experience than Bonello, doesn’t quite transform the character of Laurent with the vision and divinity as its successor. Where Lespert is almost literal, Bonello is instead deep and as complex as the character himself, picking apart every detail of the icon and the space he walked in.

Co-starring Léa Seydoux as muse Loulou de la Falaise and Louis Garrel as Jacques de Bascher, Saint Laurent’s lover, Bonello’s film poses, to varying effect, as a serious dramatic take on his life. Cinematographer Josée Deshaies enraptures the look...

"In France these days, big movies, like Christian Louboutin heels, tend to come in pairs," writes Jordan Mintzer in the Hollywood Reporter, reminding us that 2009 saw two dueling Coco Chanel biopics. He then sketches a brief history of this year's face-off. Jalil Lespert’s Yves Saint Laurent opened in France in January before screening in Berlin's Panorama section. Reviews were mixed. Bertrand Bonello's Saint Laurent, starring Gaspard Ulliel, premiered in competition in Cannes. What's more, France is sending it into the best foreign-language film race at the 2015 Oscars. Now that it's screening at the New York Film Festival, we've got reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...