News

“Journey to the End of the Night,” a literary masterpiece penned by controversial French author Louis-Ferdinand Céline, is being adapted for the big screen by Joann Sfar and Thomas Bidegain.

Well-established producers Aton Soumache (“The Little Prince”) and Alain Attal (“Beating Hearts”) are developing the project through their respective banners, Magical Society (jointly led with Sfar) and Tresor Films.

The adaptation endeavor was initiated by Sfar, a Jewish comicbook artist, illustrator, thinker and filmmaker whose body of work has promoted tolerance and combatted all forms of racism through words and images.

Published in 1932, “Journey to the End of the Night” was the first novel written by Céline, whose real name was Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches. Céline, who fled to Germany in 1944 and died in 1961 after living for many years in self-imposed exile in Denmark, remains a polarizing figure due to his antisemitic views and pamphlets that promoted the Nazi ideology during the Second World War.

Twin brothers Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma left their village in southwest France for Paris just over a decade ago to study film at the Luc Besson-spearheaded L’École de la Cité.

The duo is now settled in the French capital, but they still turn for inspiration to their working-class upbringing in so-called “Peripheral France”, a term coined in the 2010s to describe disadvantaged communities left behind by globalisation.

Their fourth feature And Their Children After Them – which world premieres in competition in Venice this weekend – taps into this world in the 1990s.

Adapted from Nicolas Mathieu’s 2018 novel of the same name, the drama revolves around three youngsters growing up in a former steel town in north-eastern France.

Anthony and Hacine (Sayyid El Alami), are the sons of two ex-steel workers, and Steph (Angelina Woreth), a girl from a comfortable middle-class background.

Over the course of four summers...

Barely a decade out of film school, Gallic twins Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma are primed for an international splash once their fourth feature, “And Their Children After Them,” premieres in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Adapted from a literary sensation that won the Prix Goncourt, France’s equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize, the film explores teenage heartache and working-class doldrums with a novelistic sweep, playing as a coming-of-age power ballad full of operatic emotions and chart-topping tunes.

“We wanted to turn a story made up of fairly ordinary, small conflicts into something vast and cinematic,” says director Zoran Boukherma, who co-wrote with his brother Ludovic after actor-filmmaker Gilles Lellouche handed each of them a copy of the book over lunch two years ago.

“That idea stemmed from our discussion with Gilles and with [original author] Nicolas Mathieu, who recognized that a very small event could lead to an entire family’s downfall.

Reflecting the breadth of Mediawan CEO Pierre-Antoine Capton’s vast network and friendships, an impressive roster of film industry players flocked to celebrate him as he received Variety‘s International Visionary Award at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday.

Attendees included CAA’s co-chairman and CEO Bryan Lourd, who said a few words about Capton on stage, as well as AGC Studios’ Stuart Ford, SPC’s Tom Bernard, Netflix’s Larry Tanz and Pauline Dauvin, and Mediawan executives including Elisabeth d’Arvieu and Justine Planchon. The event also gathered star producers within Mediawan’s galaxy, from Hugo Selignac (Chi-Fou-Mi) to Dimitri Rassam (Chapter 2), Matthias Weber (2425 Films) and Federica Sainte-Rose (Blue Morning Pictures), and entertainment attorney Elsa Huisman. There were also leaders from the various streamers, such as Sahar Baghery and Thomas Dubois from Amazon Prime Video in France and Anne-Gabrielle Dauba-Pantanacce from Netflix, among others.

The Variety award coincides...

After announcing a whopping number of English-language films in competition, Cannes Film Festival has added some international titles: Michel Hazanavicius’ animated feature “The Most Precious of Cargoes” and Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Variety has learned.

An auteur-driven allegorical feature, “The Most Precious of Cargoes” (first-look still below) is adapted from Jean-Claude Grumberg’s bestselling novel of the same name, set during World War II against the backdrop of the Holocaust. It will be the first animated feature to compete in more than a decade, since Ari Folman’s “Waltz With Bashir” in 2008.

The film is co-produced and represented internationally by Studiocanal, which also has Gilles Lellouche’s “Beating Hearts” in competition. “The Most Precious of Cargoes” is a passion project for Hazanavicius, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind “The Artist,” who has been developing the project for years. Hazanavicius penned the script with Grumberg and created the drawings,...

“Beating Hearts” (“L’amour ouf”), an epic crime romance directed by Gilles Lellouche and slated to compete at the Cannes Film Festival, has lured major distributors in key markets ahead of its world premiere.

The sprawling movie, which is budgeted in the $30 million range, is financed, co-produced represented in international markets by Studiocanal. One of the most anticipated and ambitious French movies set for a theatrical release in 2024, “Beating Hearts” was produced by Hugo Selignac at Chi-Fou-Mi, a Mediawan company, and Alain Attal’s Les Films du Tresor.

Studiocanal will distribute the film in Germany and Australia, as well as France, with a release set for Oct. 16. The company has sold it to Cineart in Benelux, Filmcoopi in Switzerland, Feelgood in Greece, Lucky Red in Italy, Lusomundo in Portugal, Kinoswiat in Poland, Greenlight Films in Ukraine, Capella in Russia and Pinema in Turkey. Studiocanal will be closing more deals at the Cannes Film Festival.

One Jake Gyllenhaal movie became national headlines in the French media for all the wrong reasons, but the U.S. media are too busy reporting his Road House troubles. Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby were signed for the indie film, Suddenly. Gyllenhaal also agreed to produce the $26 million movie directed by Thomas Bidegain. However, the production of the film fell apart in four days due to allegedly erratic behavior from the Enemy actor.

Jake Gyllenhaal in Road House

Gyllenhaal allegedly proved to be a headache for the production crew with his weird demands on set. At one point, Gyllenhaal demanded he swim in the cold sea for a scene in the film. The film fell apart when a producer refused to agree to Gyllenhaal’s demands.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Behavior Reportedly Shut Down A $26 Million Indie Movie Road House star Jake Gyllenhaal was allegedly insufferable on the sets of the scrapped...

“Suddenly” director Thomas Bidegain is clarifying his viral statements about his scrapped film set to star Jake Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby.

In a report published by France’s Technikart magazine (as translated by Film Stories UK and blog World of Reel), Bidegain claimed Gyllenhaal exhibited erratic behavior during pre-production on the survival film. Bidegain was slated to direct from a script he cowrote with Valentine Monteil, as adapted from Isabelle Autissier’s novel “Soudain Seuls.”

Gyllenhaal was a producer on the $26 million indie film set to begin production in Iceland in fall 2021. “Suddenly” starred Gyllenhaal and Kirby as a couple trapped on an island in the South Atlantic. The set was being constructed on a whaling facility, with locations already chosen in Iceland, at the time when the allegations took place. Among Bidegain’s claims included Gyllenhaal stripping down to swim in the freezing ocean and reading the script in...

French director Thomas Bidegain is setting the record straight about Jake Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby’s exit from his project “Suddenly.”

An interview with Bidegain that ran last week in the French magazine Technikart got international attention, with the headline “Four Days to Bury a Movie.” The interview suggested that Gyllenhaal and Kirby had left the film in the last stretch of pre-production in Iceland, which resulted in a loss of $26 million.

According to the story, Gyllenhaal dove into the freezing ocean, demanded multiple rewrites and rehearsed scenes in a mocking “Pepe Le Pew-like accent.” Though Bidegain wouldn’t address those specific claims, he tells Variety that he parted ways with Gyllenhaal and Kirby over a creative clash, rather than unprofessional behavior on Gyllenhaal’s part. He also claims that, contrary to what is suggested in the French article, the company which financed “Suddenly,” Studiocanal, didn’t lose $26 million because...

StudioCanal cites “very normal” creative differences in the wake of the story about the collapse of Suddenly, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

It’s been quite a week in terms of Jake Gyllenhaal-related news. Yesterday (31st January), we shared the story of Suddenly, a survival drama that would have starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby as a couple stuck on a storm-swept island.

Speaking to French magazine Technikart, director Thomas Bidegain described a strange four-day ordeal in Iceland in the autumn of 2021. Bidegain claimed that Gyllenhaal – who was also a co-producer – demanded several changes to the script, and also exhibited some curious behaviour, including stripping down to his underwear and jumping in the sea in front of cast and crew, as well as reading the script aloud in a mock French accent.

Long story short: Bidegain and co-producer Alain Attal refused to change the script, and the production fell apart before a frame of footage was shot.

An in-depth report paints a portrait of star power run amok on the set of Suddenly – a Jake Gyllenhaal drama that fell apart days before filming.

Whether it’s Val Kilmer’s antics on the set of The Island Of Doctor Moreau or Sly Stallone demanding last-minute changes during the filming of Rambo 3, cinema history is littered with stories of star power gone wild. According to a report in France’s Technikart magazine (and spotted by World of Reel) we can add the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring survival drama Suddenly to the list.

The film – essentially a two-hander about a pair of lovers trapped on an inhospitably cold island – was originally due to begin filming in the autumn of 2021. It was to be directed by Thomas Bidegain, with the script co-written by newcomer Valentine Monteil. For Bidegain, known for writing such films as A Prophet and Rust And Bone, it would...

Justine Triet’s Oscar-nominated Anatomy of a Fall and Thomas Cailley’s fantasy drama The Animal Kingdom are the front runners for this year’s Cesar Awards, France’s equivalent to the Academy Awards. In nominations announced Wednesday, Anatomy picked up 11 Cesar noms and The Animal Kingdom 12. Both were nominated in the best film and best director categories.

Also nominated for best film are Jean-Baptiste Durand’s Junkyard Dog, All Your Faces from director Jeanne Herry and Cédric Kahn’s The Goldman Case.

France’s official Academy Award contender, Anh Hung Tran’s foodie period drama The Taste of Things, which missed out on an Oscar nom on Tuesday, picked up three Ceasar nominations, but none in the main categories.

German actress Sandra Hüller, a best actress nominee at this year’s Oscars for her starring turn in Anatomy of a Fall, is also up for the Cesar for best actress,...

Thomas Cailley’s supernatural drama “The Animal Kingdom” and Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” are leading the race at the 49th Cesar Awards with 12 and 11 nominations, respectively.

Triet’s movie, which just garnered an impressive five Oscar nominations, and “The Animal Kingdom,” which opened at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and won a prize, will vie for top Cesar awards including best director and film.

“The Animal Kingdom” is an ambitious film that marks a departure from France’s cinema tradition of social realism. It’s both a creature-filled dystopia and a father-and-son drama, weaving some contemporary concerns over the future of mankind. It’s produced by Pierre Guyard at Nord Ouest Films and co-produced by Artemis.

“Anatomy of a Fall,” meanwhile stars Sandra Hüller — the German actor nominated for Cesar, Oscar and BAFTA awards — as a novelist who is put on trial following the...

Already one of France’s most beloved and bankable actors (“The Stronghold”), Gilles Lellouche is about to graduate as a big-shot filmmaker five years after delivering his sophomore outing, “Sink or Swim,” a B.O. hit which lured more than four million moviegoers (over $35 million) in theaters.

His next movie, “Beating Hearts” (“L’amour Ouf”), budgeted in the €30 million range, is epic in many ways. And not just because of its breadth and running time exceeding three hours. A crime romance loosely based on Neville Thompson’s 1997 novel “Jackie Loves Johnser Ok,” the movie is an emotional rollercoaster spanning over 15 years in the lives of star-crossed lovers. It took Lellouche over a decade to write (alongside Audrey Diwan and Ahmed Hamidi) and four months to shoot with a cast mixing rising and famous actors, a pulsating soundtrack of cult 1980s and 1990s songs, topnotch key crew and dream-like musical interludes created by (La) Horde.

Studiocanal rolled out the red carpet at the Unifrance Paris Rendez-vous this week for actor Gilles Lellouche’s upcoming feature film Beating Hearts (L’Amour Ouf).

First images for the unconventional romance played on the big screen to two packed-out screenings at the swanky Royal Monceau hotel off the Champs-Elysées on Thursday evening.

The modern Romeo and Juliet tale co-stars François Civil, who is currently riding high on the back of his D’Artagnan role in Pathé’s Three Musketeers reboot, and Adèle Exarchopoulos as former childhood sweethearts from different sides of the tracks.

Having gone their separate ways when the boy gets caught up in gang violence and lands in jail on trumped-up murder charges, the pair reconnect against the odds years later.

The picture is adapted from Irish writer Neville Thompson’s 1997 novel Jackie Loves Johnser Ok? unfolding against the backdrop of Dublin’s tough suburb of Ballyfermot in the...

Studiocanal is launching sales on Marjane Satrapi’s dark comedy Dear Paris headlined by Monica Bellucci and Rossy De Palma, Pablo Agüero’s Saint-Exupéry starring Louis Garrel, Diane Kruger and Vincent Cassel, Herve Mimran’s buddy comedy The Scammers and Gilles Lellouche’s anticipated epic love story Beating Hearts at the Rendez-Vous in Paris this week.

Satrapi’s Dear Paris is a love letter to Paris and intertwines the story of Bellucci’s narcissistic Italian opera singer, De Palma’s eccentric elderly Colombian woman, and Ben Aldridge;s British stuntman. Eduardo Noriega, André Dussollier, Alex Lutz and Roschdy Zem co-star...

Ben Aldridge (“Knock at the Cabin”) and Martina Garcia (“The Hidden Face”) have joined the cast of “Dear Paris,” Marjane Satrapi’s (“Persepolis”) ensemble drama which is one Studiocanal’s highlights at this week’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous showcase, along with Gilles Lellouche’s sprawling romance thriller “Beating Hearts.”

“Dear Paris” (“Paris Paradis”), produced by Vito Films, is a dark comedy set in the French capital where a flurry of charming characters confront death only to embrace life once again. The film also stars Monica Bellucci as a narcissistic Italian opera singer and Rossy De Palma as an eccentric elderly Colombian woman, as well as Eduardo Noriega, André Dussollier, Alex Lutz, Roschdy Zem and singer-turned-actor Gwendal Marimoutou (“Sam”).

The biggest title on Studiocanal’s roster is “Beating Hearts” (“L’amour ouf”), the highly anticipated epic love story starring François Civil, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah. The unconventional movie, now in post production,...

Paris-base sales house boards literary adaptation ’And Their Children After Them’ and dark comedy ’Lucky Winners’

Paris-based sales house Charades will represent international sales rights to French star-powered adaptation And Their Children After Them and dark comedy Lucky Winners. Both titles will be released by Warner Bros. Pictures in France and Benelux.

And Their Children After Them (Leurs Enfants Après Eux) is directed by French twin brother writing-directing duo Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma and adapted from Nicolas Mathieu’s Prix Goncourt-winning book of the same name. The Boukhermas made their debut in Cannes’ Acid with Willy the 1st then followed with 2020 Official Selection Teddy.

Paris-base sales house boards literary adaptation ’And Their Children After Them’ and dark comedy ’Lucky Winners’

Paris-based sales house Charades will represent international sales rights to French star-powered adaptation And Their Children After Them and dark comedy Lucky Winners. Both titles will be released by Warner Bros. Pictures in France and Benelux.

And Their Children After Them (Leurs Enfants Après Eux) is directed by French twin brother writing-directing duo Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma and adapted from Nicolas Mathieu’s Prix Goncourt-winning book of the same name. The Boukhermas made their debut in Cannes’ Acid with Willy the 1st then followed with 2020 Official Selection Teddy.

Hitman dramedy “Knok,” pandemic-thriller “Lt-21,” and dystopian sendup “Rictus” will head off Have A Good One’s (Hago) Mipcom slate, as the Paris-based TV development and sales company has boarded two additional series currently in production.

Produced by Mifa Pictures (Groupe StoryPlus) and N22 Productions for 13ème Rue France, and created by Guillaume Duhesme, Bastien Ughetto and Lucie Moreau, the off-kilter “Knok” follows a hapless single-dad inducted into the underworld and made an unwilling contract-killer after accidentally witnessing a hit. César-winner Sylvie Testud (“Fear and Trembling”) and up-and-comer Johann Cuny lead the cast for a loopy six-part season that won acclaim at the La Rochelle Fiction Festival earlier this year.

Given the spotlight at the Biarritz Unifrance Rendez-vous last month, eco-thriller “Lt-21” tracks a disquieting pandemic plot about an international virus that forces amnesia on those afflicted. Actors Arnaud Valois (“Bpm”) and Léonie Simaga (“The Eddy”) play a pair doctors...

Period drama inspired by the true story of a French bearded woman.

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Stephanie Di Giusto’s period drama Rosalie from France’s Gaumont, following its premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.

Set in 1870s France, it stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz as a woman who must constantly shave her face to conceal her hairiness, which extends across her whole body. Her new husband, played by Benoît Magimel, is initially repulsed but when she lets go of her embarrassment, the novelty begins to attract curious customers to their struggling cafe.

‘Rosalie’: Cannes...

Alain Attal and Hugo Selignac have formed a producing duo known for delivering original, starry French films that probe uneasy subjects that earn B.O. gold and critical laurels. Attal is in Cannes with Un Certain Regard title “Rosalie,” while Selignac has “Omar à la Fraise” in Critics’ Week.

The pair is now about to hit a new milestone in 2024, starting with Gilles Lellouche’s epic romance drama “L’Amour Ouf,” which boasts a budget of €32 million ($34 million) and marks Studiocanal’s biggest investment in a French-language film to date. They also have “And Their Children After Them,” an adaptation of Nicolas Mathieu’s Goncourt Prize-winning novel to be directed by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma (“Teddy”), which has been boarded by Warner Bros. France and HBO Max and France Televisions, the first French movie to bring together these three partners.

“L’Amour Ouf” also marks the first film co-acquired by Canal Plus,...

Carole Scotta and Barbara Letellier, the French producers of Dominik Moll’s thriller “The Night of the 12th,” won the Toscan du Plantier Award at a Paris ceremony hosted by the Cesar Academie.

The pair, who produced the movie at Haut et Court (“The Class”), were voted on by 1,641 people, including artists and crew members who were previously nominated at the Cesar Awards, along with the governing body members of the Cesar Academie.

On stage with Letellier, Scotta praised Moll’s vision for the “The Night of the 12th” and said the film was “driven by the power of the collective effort. “That’s what we see with this group of cops working tirelessly to solve a case,” she continued.

“The Night of the 12th” is vying for 10 Cesar awards. The brooding topical procedural, which also opened as part of Cannes’ Premiere section, stars Bastien Bouillon and Bouli Lanners as...

Guillaume Canet’s ambitious 64M euros (70M) production Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom was on track to be the top opener at the French box office on Wednesday, but it remains to be seen whether the film can match the success of its predecessors.

Pathé released the title on 950 screens across France in the biggest theatrical launch of early 2023 for local productions. The mini-major bankrolled the film and is also a producer alongside Alain Attal’s Tresor Films and Yohan Baiada at Les Enfants Terribles.

In first figures for the Paris region, which can be a bellwether for box office performance across the rest of the country, especially for mainstream local productions like Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom, the film scored the strongest opening.

By 2 pm local time, the film had drawn 9,091 spectators in 84 theaters, split between 3,274 admissions on 29 screens in the city and 5,817 admissions in outer Paris.

French actor and director Guillaume Canet has revealed he is feeling the pressure ahead of the release next week of his ambitious 70M production Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom.

Canet directs and stars in the film as iconic plucky Gaul Asterix in an all-star ensemble cast also featuring Gilles Lellouche as Obelix, Vincent Cassel as Julius Caesar, Marion Cotillard as Cleopatra and Swedish soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimović as Caesar’s bodyguard Antivirus.

The production is Canet’s eighth feature after 2006 breakout Tell No One, 2010 hit Little White Lies, Brooklyn-set, English-language debut Blood Ties and the smaller more personal pandemic-shot film Lui.

Long-time collaborator Alain Attal at Trésor Films produces with Pathé and Yohan Baiada at Les Enfants Terribles.

Pathé will launch Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom on 1,200 screens on February 1. Local media is hailing the release as the biggest film event of early 2023.

Canet has said he...

La Rosalie

Production on Stéphanie Di Giusto‘s sophomore feature took place in October of last year and it features the likes of Nadia Tereszkiewicz (a true breakout in Les amandiers), Benoît Magimel, Benjamin Biolay, Gustave Kervern, Guillaume Gouix and Juliette Armanet. Di Giusto’s debut film was 2016’s La danseuse – selected for the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes. Written by Stéphanie Di Giusto, Sandrine Le Coustumer and Alexandra Echkenazi, La Rosalie is inspired by Clémentine Delait – known as France’s bearded lady. Trésor Films’ Alain Attal is producing.

Gist: This is set at the end of the 19th century and recounts the destiny of the first bearded woman, at the heart of a love story.…...

Soudain, seuls

A thriller book-to-film adaptation that was originally meant to be worked in the English language and set to star Jake Gyllenhaal (The Sisters Brothers) and Vanessa Kirby and would then be transferred onto Gilles Lellouche and Melanie Thierry, Thomas Bidegain moved into production in September of last year in Iceland. A longtime scribe for Jacques Audiard’s films, Soudain, seuls (Suddenly) is Bidegain’s second feature following 2015’s Les Cowboys (which starred François Damiens) which was also produced by Tresor Films’ Alain Attal. We’re getting Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness vibes with this true litmus relationship test.…...

Alain Attal, the French producer behind the upcoming 73 million movie “Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom,” is teaming with Studiocanal on Thomas Bidegain’s survival drama “Suddenly,” which will star Gilles Lellouche (“The Stronghold”) and Melanie Thierry (“En Therapie”).

Currently in pre-production, “Suddenly” will mark the sophomore directing outing of Bidegain, whose co-screenwriting credits include “Stillwater,” “The Sisters Brothers” and “A Prophet.”

The project was previously set up as an English-language project with Jake Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby set to star. Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories was also a co-producer on the project and is no longer attached.

Attal told Variety that Bidegain re-worked the script with Valentine Monteil to make the €14 million (14.7 million) film with a French cast and produce it entirely out of France with Attal’s Tresor Films and Studiocanal, which is financing, handling international sales and French distribution rights. Icelandic banner True North Prods. is an executive co-producer on the movie.

Pathé may be one of France’s oldest film groups, but it is young at heart. The only French film company that is still fully involved in exhibition, production, distribution and sales, Pathé has been confronting the challenges wrought by the pandemic and the arrival of streamers with bold steps and ambitious new projects. During the Cannes Film Festival, the company will receive Variety’s Intl. Achievement in Film Award.

In the past two years, the family-owned film group, which is led by the visionary businessman Jérôme Seydoux, saw its “Coda” win three Oscars for family drama; greenlit the country’s biggest-budgeted movies in recent history, “Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom” (75 million) and the two-part adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ masterpiece, “The Three Musketeers — D’Artagnan” and “The Three Musketeers — Milady” (75 million); it ventured into TV series; and forged bonds with streaming services, including Netflix and Apple TV+.

“When theaters were shut down,...

Variety will honor French entertainment giant Pathé with its Intl. Achievement in Film Award on May 20 at the Cannes Film Festival.

Pathé – which is the only French film group still fully involved in exhibition, production, distribution and sales – is family-owned and run by Jérôme Seydoux. Earlier this year, “Coda,” the remake of the company’s “La Famille Bélier,” took three Oscars, including for best picture.

In the past two years, the company has greenlit big budget features “Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom” and the two-part adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ masterpiece, “The Three Musketeers – D’Artagnan” and “The Three Musketeers – Milady.”

Pathé is venturing into television production and signed pacts with Netflix and Apple TV+.

During the pandemic, Pathé forged ahead with films for theatrical release, and Seydoux, who has been involved in greenlighting big-budget epics, wants to maintain the company’s high standards whether in film or TV.

Pathé...

Edouard Weil and Alice Girard, the producers of Audrey Diwan’s Venice Golden Lion-winning “Happening” and Valerie Lemercier’s Celine Dion movie “Aline,” won the Toscan du Plantier Award at a fancy Paris ceremony hosted by the Cesar Academie.

Weil and Girard, who run the Paris-based production banner Rectangle Productions, were selected by 1,557 voters, including all the artists and crew members who have been nominated at the Cesar Awards since 2008, as well as the 164 members of the Association for the Promotion of Cinema.

Besides “Happening” and “Aline,” Rectangle Productions delivered several other critically acclaimed films within the last year, including Jean-Christophe Meurisse’s “Bloody Oranges” and Gaspar Noé’s “Vortex” which played at Cannes.

Since being created by Weil in 2003, the company has also produced films by international auteurs, including Elia Suleiman. Girard, an industry veteran who previously held a senior executive position at French broadcasting group France Televisions, joined...

European film-tv powerhouse Studiocanal has clinched major territory sales across a powerful slate of new movies, led by Jake Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby survival thriller “Suddenly,” and “Baghead” with “The Witcher’s” Freya Allan.

“Boldangles” and “Cat Person,” starring “Succession’s” Nicholas Braun and “Coda’s” Emilia Jones, are also finding trading traction, as is Cannes Festival player “Peaceful,” headlining Catherine Deneuve, also has deal momentum.

Multiple deals are in advanced negotiations, and will close by festival end, said Chloé Marquet, Studiocanal head of international film sales as she drilled down on deals done.

“Suddenly” will be put through Studiocanal direct distribution operations in the U.K., Germany, France and Australia/New Zealand. In major deals, it has now closed distribution in half the biggest film markets in the world, adding Latin America (California) and Italy (Leone).

Other key sales take in Eastern Europe (Prorom), Blitz (ex-Yugoslavia), Turkey (Tanweer), Portugal...

European studio to plough more than $1bn into film and TV production between now and 2024.

Canal+ Group/Studiocanal chairman Maxime Saada and Studiocanal CEO Anna Marsh were in an ebullient mood on Tuesday (July 6) as the Paris-based European studio kicked off its 30th-anniversary edition of Cannes with its traditional pre-festival show-reel event.

“The story started right here in Cannes, three decades ago with our first nominated movie The Double Life Of Véronique,” said Saada, noting that 55 films in the studio’s catalogue had won awards at the festival.

This year the company has two films debuting Out of Competition: Marseille-set...

Pathé, a driving force behind France’s biggest movies slated for 2022 including “Asterix & Obelix, the Middle Kingdom” and “The Three Musketeers,” is developing an untitled two-part film about Charles de Gaulle, the legendary French army officer who led the French resistance against Nazi Germany during World War II and eventually became president of France.

The film will be directed by Antonin Baudry, who made his feature debut with “The Wolf’s Call,” toplining “Lupin” star Omar Sy. Baudry is currently writing the screenplay, which is based on Julian Jackson’s “A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle.” Production is expected to start in 2023.

The two movies will follow De Gaulle’s life and political engagement between 1940 and 1945, and charts his evolution into a political career.

“We’re interested by this period because that’s when De Gaulle became the De Gaulle we know, a national hero, and we will explore his successes,...

Exclusive: In some powerhouse two-hander casting, we can reveal that Oscar nominees Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) and Vanessa Kirby (Pieces Of A Woman) have been set to lead survival thriller Suddenly, which quickly becomes one of the must-have packages at the Cannes virtual market. The movie will be the sophomore directorial outing for acclaimed screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, known for scripting films such as A Prophet, Rust And Bone and Dheepan, which won the Palme d’Or. Bidegain is also scripting the English-language project.

The feature is based on Isabelle Autissier’s French-language novel Soudain Seuls, which follows a couple who become stranded on an island in the South Atlantic and must fight for survival when their dream journey becomes a nightmare. The novel shines a light on the dynamics of their relationship and also holds a mirror up to modern society.

Studiocanal is launching world sales this week and is...

The Cesar Awards, France’s highest film honors, have confirmed that the ceremony will be held on March 12, ideally as an in-person show. The 46th edition of the awards will also be broadcast live on Canal Plus. A spokesperson for the Cesar Academy told Variety that a virtual show is also being considered and a final decision on the format of the ceremony will be taken after January 20.

The event normally takes place in late February, so a mid-March date isn’t a big stretch. France has been coping with the second wave of the pandemic and theaters are due to reopen on Dec. 15 after a 90-day shutdown.

“In the face of the pandemic we’ve struggled with for months and which marked 2020, the Cesar ceremony will offer a moment of celebration and support for films, and more generally, culture,” said the French Academy of Arts and Sciences.

“[The ceremony] will pay...

Former Cnc and Arte chief Véronique Cayla promises transparency, democracy and gender equality.

Véronique Cayla and Eric Toledano have been voted president and vice president of France’s Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques for a two-year term, in the body’s first democratic, gender-equal election of its governing board.

The French film industry is hoping their election will mark the end of a torrid period for the troubled body which went into meltdown earlier this year amid growing criticisms over its lack of transparency, gender equality and inclusion.

Cayla has wide experience of France’s film and TV world...

Following a backlash within its membership ranks and the resignation of its board of directors and president earlier this year, France’s Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma has set new leadership. At a general assembly today, the Académie, which hands out the country’s César Awards, elected former Cnc and Arte chief Veronique Cayla as president and Intouchables co-director and filmmaker Eric Toledano as vice president. They will hold their positions for a two-year term.

The duo replaces Margaret Menegoz who was interim president following Alain Terzian’s departure in February. Terzian left amid rising controversy in the wake of this year’s César nominations which gave Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy the lead at 12. The film ultimately won three prizes at the protested ceremony.

Prior to the awards, the film org was called out as “elitist and closed” by some 200 artists who said they...

Veronique Cayla, the well-respected film and TV executive who recently stepped down from the leadership of Franco-German public culture channel Arte France, will preside the Cesar Academy, which distributes France’s equivalent to the Oscars. Eric Toledano, the popular co-director of smash-hit “The Intouchables” and a key member of the film guild Arp, will be vice-president of the Cesar Academy.

Both Cayla and Toledano were elected for a two-year mandate by the new administration board of the Academy, which includes 42 reps from 21 different fields within the film industry, from actors to crew members, screenwriters, directors and producers. Gender parity has been applied with a man and a woman representing each branch.

The new administration board includes the actors Marina Fois and Antoine Reinartz, the directors Pascale Ferran and Cédric Klapisch, the screenwriters Olivier Gorce and Julier Peyr, the producers Alain Attal and Marie-Ange Luciani, the agents Sébastien Cauchon and Elisabeth Tanner,...

After delivering two of the highest-grossing French films of last year, Alain Attal’s Paris-based production company Tresor Films is kicking off 2020 with its most ambitious project yet, Guillaume Canet’s “Asterix & Obelix: The Silk Road.”

Co-produced and financed by Jerome Seydoux’s Pathé, “Asterix & Obelix” is budgeted at $72.4 million, an exceptionally high budget by French standards. Attal, who is also producing the film with the banner Les Enfants Terribles, said the price tag was on a par with previous instalments of “Asterix,” and reflected the scope of the film and commercial potential of the comicbook franchise.

“It’s a costume film set 2,000 years ago, so we’ll be building a village, filming gigantic battles and that will require plenty of extras, and we’ll also need a lot of visual effects and of course a high-profile cast with some cameos,” said Attal. The most successful opus, “Asterix and Obelix Meet Cleopatra,...

Valentyn Vasyanovych’s “Atlantis,” a dystopian film set in war-torn Ukraine, won the Crystal Arrow Award of the 11th edition of Les Arcs Film Festival.

The film, which won the top prize at Venice’s Horizons section this year, takes place in 2025 in Eastern Ukraine after a ten-year war against Russia which has left the country in ruins. “Atlantis” follows two war veterans, Sergiy (Andriy Rymaruk) and a mate, who are both affected by the war and are living in an abandoned building.

Presided over by the French filmmaker Guillaume Nicloux, the jury was comprised of Santiago Amigorena, the Colombian screenwriter, producer and author, Mélanie De Biasio, the Belgian musician, Nina Hoss, the German actor, Atiq Rahimi, the Afghan director, and Antoine Reinartz, the French actor.

Besides the Cystal Arrow prize, five other kudos were handed out at les Arcs, including the Grand Jury Prize which went to Sarah Gavron’s “Rocks,...

Gregoire Melin’s Paris-based Kinology is attending the Afm with an eclectic slate of ambitious films from emerging as well as seasoned French directors, including the science fiction adventure movie “The Last Journey of Paul W. R.,” and “How I Became a Super Hero,” France’s first superhero thriller.

Directed by Romain Quirot, “The Last Journey of Paul W.R.” expands on the critically acclaimed 2015 short film by the same name that won an award at the Berlin Short Film Festival, and played at Tribeca, among other festivals. It was also a top 50 finalist for the 2017 Oscar Shorts

The dystopian film is set in 2050, at a time when temperatures have reached unbearable heights, most wildlife species have gone extinct and hundreds of millions of people have become climate refugees. Only one man can save the world, it’s Paul Wr, the most talented astronaut of its generation.

Currently in production,...

France’s top producer Hugo Selignac, who had a banner year in 2018 with “Sink or Swim” and “In Safe Hands,” is set to produce the next projects of high-profile filmmakers Cedric Jimenez (“The Man With the Iron Heart”) and Quentin Dupieux (“Deerskin”).

Jimenez’s project, “Bac Nord,” is an ambitious thriller following a police brigade working in the dangerous northern neighborhoods of Marseille, where the level of crime is higher than anywhere else in France.

“Bac Nord” will be headlined by a strong cast of French stars, including Gilles Lellouche, the director “Sink of Swim” and actor of “Little White Lies 2,” as well as Francois Civil (“Wolf’s Call”), who just won the Chopard Trophy Award for rising talent; Karim Leklou, who earned a Cesar nomination for best newcomer for his performance in “The World Is Yours”; Adele Exarchopoulos (“Blue Is the Warmest Color”); and Kenza Fortas, who just won...

Alain Attal, whose Paris-based company is behind Gilles Lellouche’s “Sink or Swim” and Jeanne Herry’s “In Safe Hands,” won the Toscan du Plantier Award, Gaul’s equivalent to the PGA’s Darryl F. Zanuck award, at a Paris ceremony on Feb. 18.

Attal, the founder of Tresor Films, was named France’s best producer of 2018 at the event, which was hosted by the French Academy of Arts and Science — just a few days before the Cesar Awards, France’s top film awards.

Attal said on stage that he shared the trophy with Hugo Selignac who runs the company Chi-Fou-Mi Productions and was featured in Variety’s 10 Producers to Watch last year. Together with Selignac, Attal produced Lellouche’s ensemble comedy-drama “Sink or Swim” which has 10 Cesar nominations; and “In Safe Hands,” nominated for seven Cesar Awards.

“Sink or Swim” follows a group of disenchanted men on the verge of...

Alain Attal took the French Academy's producing prize ahead of the upcoming Cesar Awards.

The prize has become an early predictor for the top prize on the big night, and Attal's win puts the two films he produced in the lead for a best film trophy: Gilles Lellouche's Cannes comedy Sink or Swim and Jeanne Herry's adoption drama In Safe Hands.

The prolific Attal is behind more than 30 films — including Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties, starring Clive Owen and Marion Cotillard; Maiwenn's My King; and Nicole Garcia's Under the Land of the Moon — under his Les ...

Alain Attal took the French Academy's producing prize ahead of the upcoming Cesar Awards.

The prize has become an early predictor for the top prize on the big night, and Attal's win puts the two films he produced in the lead for a best film trophy: Gilles Lellouche's Cannes comedy Sink or Swim and Jeanne Herry's adoption drama In Safe Hands.

The prolific Attal is behind more than 30 films — including Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties, starring Clive Owen and Marion Cotillard; Maiwenn's My King; and Nicole Garcia's Under the Land of the Moon — under his Les ...

Netflix is closing in on a deal for Antonin Baudry’s “The Wolf’s Call” (“Le Chant du Loup”), an anticipated big-budget French submarine thriller, for multiple territories.

The streaming service is in advanced negotiations to pre-buy “The Wolf’s Call” from Pathé International for North America, Latin America, Spain and Scandinavia, as well as for France, where Netflix would get exclusive Svod rights 36 months after the local theatrical release. The film will be released on Netflix in North America, Latin America, Spain and Scandinavia this summer. Pathé will distribute “The Wolf’s Call” in French theaters starting next Wednesday.

“The Wolf’s Call” will be released by independent distributors in other territories. Pathé has already pre-sold the film to Germany (Concorde), Japan (Klockworks), Cis (Total Films), Middle East (Gulf), Portugal (Cinemundo), Czech Republic (MediaSquad), former Yugoslavia (Fox Vision), Turkey (Pixel Yapim) and Hong Kong (Sun Dream), among other territories.

French writer and director Thomas Bidegain, whose screenwriting credits include Jacques Audiard’s “The Sisters Brothers,” has joined forced with Noé Debré (“Dheepan”) to co-write a miniseries based on the “The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda,” the 2007 book written by Wall Street Journal correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov.

Produced by Vice for HBO, the four-part series chronicles the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca by Islamic radicals.

“It’s a crazy story. Salafists invaded the Mecca and the hostage situation lasted for 14 days with tens of thousands of people, including some Americans, Saudis and Iranians, who were trapped inside; no one understood what was happening, the negotiations lasted two weeks,” said Bidegain, who pointed out that earlier that same month as the siege, Iranian students had taken more 60 American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The Forge is executive producing the series.

Pathé International is rolling off a strong Cannes film market with major pre-sales closed on Renee Zellweger starrer “Judy,” submarine action thriller “The Wolf’s Call,” and French comedy “The Brand New Adventures of Aladin.”

“Judy,” Rupert Goold’s anticipated film starring the Oscar-winning Zellweger as Judy Garland, has been sold to Japan (Gaga), Australia (EOne), Italy (Notorious), Spain (Vertice 360), Cis (Paradise), China (Polar Light), Czech Republic (Aqs), Former Yugoslavia (Fox Vision), Greece (Spentzos), Middle East (Empire International) and India (Venus).

Deals are currently being negotiated for other territories, including North America. Pathé will release “Judy” in the U.K., France and Switzerland during the second half of 2019. Zellweger stars in the film opposite Jessie Buckley, Rufus Sewell and Michael Gambon.

Meanwhile, Antonin Baudry’s “The Wolf’s Call” (“Champ du Loup”), a $22.3 million action thriller starring Omar Sy, sold to Germany (Concorde), Japan (Klockworks), Cis (Total Films), Middle East...

Carole Lambert’s recently launched Windy Prods., which has the Marion Cotillard-starrer “Angel Face” playing in Un Certain Regard, is set to produce Joséphine Derobe’s fantasy feature “Vv,” Eric Capitaine’s “Les bonnes actions” and Manuel Schapira’s “Tropique de la violence.”

Derobe’s “Vv” follows Anna, a woman who wakes up in a hospital room after surviving a deadly car accident. Although she tries to remain optimistic, her return to normal life turns nightmarish as she undergoes rehabilitation therapy using virtual reality. The movie will mark the feature debut of Derobe, who is a well-known French 3D and Vr artist.

Shapira’s “Tropique de la Violence” is co-written with French novelist Delphine de Vigan, whose “Based on a True Story” was adapted into a film by Roman Polanski.

“Tropique” centers on Moïse, a boy who was abandoned at birth and adopted by a nurse in Mayotte who...