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Ozon and a stellar cast serve up an entertaining, if shallow caper that shades a little too close to #MeToo

François Ozon has directed plenty of complex, demanding and serious dramas: Everything Went Fine, Summer of 85 and By the Grace of God, along with adaptations of Fassbinder. But he also has a sweet tooth for breezy, silly, crowd-pleasing theatrical comedies like this one. Watching it is like being force-fed a large box of chocolates; moreish, though. There is certainly an amazing blue-chip cast of French movie-acting royalty, including Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini and André Dussollier.

The Crime Is Mine is adapted from a 1934 French stage comedy called Mon Crime by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil which has already spawned two different madcap Hollywood versions in the 30s and 40s, respectively starring Carole Lombard and Betty Hutton. Nadia Tereszkiewicz plays Madeleine, an impecunious would-be stage star, engaged to wealthy young...

Parkland has unleashed the trailer for François Ozon’s satire ‘The Crime is Mine’ featuring Isabelle Huppert.

Paris in the 1930s — a playground for industrial heirs and debonair architects, but the City of Lights does not shine evenly for all. Struggling actress Madeleine (Nadia Terezkiewicz) and her best friend Pauline (Rebecca Marder), an unemployed lawyer, live in a cramped flat and owe five months’ rent. Opportunity knocks after a lascivious theatrical producer who made an inappropriate advance towards Madeleine turns up dead. Madeleine stands trial for murder and ascends to decadent stardom, with Pauline serving as defence counsel and media circus ringmaster. A new life of fame, wealth and tabloid celebrity awaits — until the truth comes out.

Adapted from a 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, the cast includes Isabelle Huppert, Dany Boon and Fabrice Luchini.

Also in trailers – Trailer drops for Steve McQueen’s ‘Blitz’

The film hits...

French filmmaker Laurent Tirard, known for films including Little Nicholas, Molière and Asterix & Obelisk: God Save Britannia, has died aged 57 following a long illness, his agent announced on Thursday (September 5).

Tirard directed several features across two decades. His most recent film was 2022’s Oh My Goodness! (Juste Ciel!) about nuns competing in a bicycle race, while The Speech was selected for the pandemic-year Cannes Label in 2020; the filmmaker also served on the Un Certain Regard jury in 1999.

Two of Tirard’s most successful films were his 2009 adaptation of well-known children’s book series Little Nicholas, which sold 5.6 million tickets in France,...

Laurent Tirard, the French screenwriter and director whose best-known works included adaptations of René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé’s Little Nicholas and Nicolas on Holiday, has died after a long illness. He was 57.

Tirard was a well-liked figure in the French film industry who made 15 features over the course of two decades.

They also included Molière (2007), starring Romain Duris as the historic playwright; Astérix & Obélix: God Save Britannia (2012) with Catherine Deneuve, Fabrice Luchini and Guillaume Gallienne; romantic comedy Up For Love with Jean Dujardin and Virginie Efira, and costume drama Return Of A Hero (2018), also starring Oscar-winner Dujardin.

He also directed early episodes of hit show Call My Agent!.

Tirard’s films rarely debuted at film festivals but regularly achieved healthy box office results at home and sold well internationally too.

“He had a talent for capturing and retelling human stories with a lot of humor and sensibility,” PR agency...

Claude Lelouchs aktueller Film „Finallement“ wird im Mostra-Wettbewerb außer Konkurrenz gezeigt. Vor dem Screening am 2. September erhält Lelouch im Sala Grande den Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award.

Claude Lelouch wird auf der Mostra mit dem Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award ausgezeichnet (Credit: La Biennale)

Claude Lelouch wird im Rahmen der Mostra in Venedig mit dem Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award geehrt. Das gab die Mostra, die die Auszeichnung seit 2021 zusammen mit ihrem Hauptsponsor, dem Schmuck- und Uhrenhersteller Cartier, an eine Persönlichkeit, die einen besonders originellen Beitrag zur zeitgenössischen Filmindustrie geleistet hat, vergibt, heute mit.

Festivalleiter Alberto Barbera: „Claude Lelouch ist einer der bedeutendsten Regisseure des französischen Kinos, ein hervorragender Interpret seiner „Qualität“, auch wenn er seinen Hauptströmungen fremd ist, und ein sehr produktiver Filmemacher, der über sechzig Spielfilme gedreht hat. Der frühreife Filmliebhaber, Autor von Kurzfilmen und Musikvideos, Kameramann, Drehbuchautor, Schauspieler und Produzent hatte 1966 einen internationalen...

French director Claude Lelouch will receive the Glory to the Filmmaker award at the 81st Venice Film Festival (August 28-September 7).

The filmmaker, known for his Oscar-winning 1967 drama A Man And A Woman, will be presented with the award on September 2 ahead of the premiere of his Out of Competition title Finalement.

The award is given to an individual who has made an especially original contribution to modern cinema.

Lelouch was last in Venice in 2002 for the multi-collaboration September 11, which won the Unesco award, while his 1996 drama Men, Women: A User’s Manual won the Little Golden Lion. His other notable credits include 1995’s Les Miserables,...

Having sprinkled his films in the competition section twice before with Les chansons d’amour (2007) and Sorry Angel (2018), Christophe Honoré has also populated the fest with Un Certain Regard, Out of Comp and Directors’ Fortnight offerings. With Marcello Mio, the filmmaker reunites with his muse Chiara Mastroianni and they both honor who else but her famous actor dad and what is kinda meta level is that her mom Catherine Deneuve and other famous faces in Fabrice Luchini, Nicole Garcia, Benjamin Biolay, Melvil Poupaud all play version of themselves.

Gist: This is the story of a woman named Chiara. She is an actress, the daughter of Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve.…...

Now a Cannes veteran, French filmmaker Christophe Honoré has returned to the Competition with the world premiere of Marcello Mio, his French-Italian comedy that stars longtime collaborator Chiara Mastroianni — who, in the film, adopts the persona and appearance of her late father, Marcello Mastroianni. The movie received applause that lasted a touch over eight minutes during its unveiling this evening.

Marcello Mio taps into the younger Mastroianni’s complex reality of being the daughter of cinema icons Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve.

In a fantasy scenario, Chiara hits a crisis point and begins to dress, speak and breathe like her late father, the legendary star of such films as La Dolce Vita, 81/2 and Marriage Italian Style. Those around her, including Deneuve, Fabrice Luchini, Melvil Poupaud, Benjamin Biolay, Nicole Garica and Hugh Skinner, who also play part-real, part-fictionalized versions of themselves in Marcello Mio, begin to believe it and start to call her “Marcello.

Celebrities: they’re not just like us, exactly, but they’re human just the same. Which is why some of the current discourse around “nepo babies” must be a little wounding for showbiz scions nursing their own insecurities about their talent, their reputation and their place in the world — even if the prudent thing to do, from a PR perspective, is to openly check your privilege and move on. Yet whatever degree of sympathy one might feel for actor Chiara Mastroianni — the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni, a dazzling legacy to bear but perhaps not an easy one — largely evaporates by the end of “Marcello Mio,” a vastly indulgent but gossamer-weight bit of frippery from French writer-director Christophe Honoré, in which Mastroianni channels her late father to increasingly contrived comic effect.

So wink-wink it can barely see straight, so inside-baseball it’s practically buried under the pitcher’s mound,...

Talk about an identity crisis!

In a wonderfully funny and completely original comedy, French star Chiara Mastroianni in a bit of an existential crisis mode decides one day to morph into her very famous father, the late great Marcello Mastroianni. In a search for her own identity she discovers more about herself, her father, even her equally famous mother Catherine Deneuve who surprisingly consented to play herself and discover truths about her relationship with her ex-finacé (he died in 1996) that had never been made public.

Playing tonight in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival, where the entire family has appeared many times as fictional characters, this time it hits close to home, but always with a light touch as Chiara drops her own persona and hits the town as if it were Marcello Mastroianni back in Fellini’s 8 1/2. Black suit, hat, moustache, large glasses — she’s all in.

Of all the actors with claims to nepo baby aristocracy, few, if any, have the same pedigree as Chiara Mastroianni. An accomplished performer and winning star all on her own, the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni has that rare distinction of seeing both of her parents grace Cannes Film Festival posters, leaving a project that playfully interrogates that very heritage a near shoo-in for the festival spotlight. But that vaunted competition slot does little favors for Christophe Honoré’s slight and sketch-like “Marcello Mio,” which plays as an incisive photo-shoot concept in search of wider justification.

This fashion shoot concept isn’t hypothetical, as Honoré’s meta-movie doodle opens on the very same, finding Mastroianni decked out in full Anita Ekberg garb as she saunters into a pool before Paris’ Saint-Sulpice church reformatted as an ersatz Trevi Fountain. The visual folds in several layers, taking Marcello’s iconic turn in “La Dolce Vita,...

French director Christophe Honoré returns to Cannes Competition for a third time on Tuesday with comedy Mio Marcello, reuniting him with long time collaborator Chiara Mastroianni.

The comedy taps into the actress’ real-life complex reality of being the daughter of cinema icons Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni.

In a fantasy scenario, Mastroianni hits a crisis point in her life and decides to adopt the look and persona of her late father, much to the surprise of her family and friends, as well as those who knew the legendary actor when he was alive.

Mastroianni is joined in the cast by her mother Deneuve, former partners Benjamin Biolay and Mevil Poupaud as well as Fabrice Luchini, Nicole Garcia, UK actor Hugh Skinner and Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli, who famously starred opposite Marcello Mastroianni in the 1961 classic Divorce Italian Style.

Deadline talked to Honoré ahead of the world premiere.

Deadline: What was...

The film adaptation of popular comic strip “Natacha (Almost) Air Hostess” boasts an all-star cast.

The cast includes Camille Lou (“Anthracite”), Vincent Dedienne (“We Can Be Heroes”), Fabrice Luchini (“The Empire”), Didier Bourdon (“Cocorico), Elsa Zylberstein (“Coup de Chance”), Isabelle Adjani (“Wingwomen”) and Baptiste Lecaplain (“Meet the Leroys”).

The film is loosely based on the comic strip of the same name created by screenwriter François Walthéry, which was published by Editions Dupuy, and which comprises 23 albums and has sold more than five million copies.

The story follows Natacha, who, since she was a child, has dreamed of becoming an air hostess so that she can break free from the constraints of an age where women are expected to remain at home. Just as her dream is on the verge of becoming a reality, she finds herself involved against her will on an adventure on the trail of a bunch of...

Roll up, roll up for Part 2 of our Cannes Film Festival preview, this time with a focus on international, mainly non-English-language fare. If you didn’t catch Andreas’ English-language-focused Part 1, check it out.

As the fest basks in the warm glow of the Oscar wins for 2023 Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall and Grand Jury Prize winner The Zone of Interest, delegate general Thierry Frémaux and his team are furiously tying up the 2024 Official Selection.

With less than four weeks to go until the bulk of the 77th edition (running May 14-25) is revealed at the press conference in Paris on April 11, we’ve rounded up a host of the titles ready and in the running for a splash in either Official Selection or the main parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week.

The registration deadline was March 15, with March 22 the official cut-off for submissions to arrive...

Kino Lorber have picked up all rights in North America to Bruno Dumont’s sci-fi farce The Empire after its triumphant debut at the Berlin Film Festival last month, where it won the Silver Bear Jury Prize.

Anamaria Vartolomei, Camille Cottin, Lyna Khoudri, and Fabrice Luchini star in the French-language feature, which re-imagines the world of George Lucas’ Star Wars with its epic sci-fi battle of good vs. evil, relocating the action to a sleepy northern France town and filtering the story through the frankly bonkers mind of the director of Slack Bay, Li’l Quinquin and Coincoin and the Extra-Humans. There are plenty of VFX spaceships and lightsaber battles and only a few gratuitous sex scenes (this is a French film after all).

Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release for L’Empire later this year 2024, followed by a home video, educational, and digital release across all major platforms.

Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Bruno Dumont’s recent Berlinale selection The Empire.

‘The Empire’: Berlin Review

Anamaria Vartolomei, Camille Cottin, Lyna Khoudri, and Fabrice Luchini star in the sci-fi farce about extraterrestrial forces who descend on Earth after the birth of a baby in a French village triggers a secret intergalactic war.

The film won the Silver Bear Jury Prize in Berlin and is a Tessalit Productions production in co-production with Red Balloon Film, Ascent Film, Novak Prod, Rosa Filmes, and Furyo Films.

Jean Bréhat and Bertrand Faivre produced, and the co-producers are Dorothe Beinemeier,...

Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to Bruno Dumont’s “The Empire,” a sci-fi satire starring Anamaria Vartolomei (“Happening”), Camille Cottin (“Call My Agent!”), Lyna Khoudri (“The Three Musketeers”) and Fabrice Luchini.

“The Empire” just world premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear Jury Prize. The movie marks Dumont’s follow up to “France,” a dark comedy starring Léa Seydoux which competed at the Cannes Film Festival.

Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release later this year, followed by a home video, educational and digital release on all major platforms. The acquisition of “The Empire” marks the sixth time that Kino Lorber has collaborated with Dumont, with previous releases including “Li’l Quinquin,” “Coincoin and the Extra-Humans,” “Slack Bay,” “Camille Claudel 1915” and, most recently, “France.”

The film is set in a quiet and picturesque fishing village in Northern France, where a special...

Out of the many movies you could imagine emerging from the mind of French auteur Bruno Dumont, a Star Wars parody was probably somewhere at the bottom of the list.

And yet it’s been some time since the Cannes Grand Jury Prize laureate, who broke out in the late 90s with viscerally stylized, hard-hitting works of Gallic realism like The Life of Jesus and Humanity, has strayed far from his gritty roots towards a brand of accentuated arthouse satire.

His latest effort, the sci-fi farce The Empire (L’Empire), definitely fits the latter mold, although it’s loaded with enough VFX, light saber battles, spacecrafts and prophecies to give George Lucas a run for his money. That is, if Lucas decided to set the next Star Wars in a sleepy northern French city, used a local mechanic to play one of the leads and tossed in a few flagrant sex scenes,...

It is increasingly weird to recall that for a while, French director Bruno Dumont was the kind of filmmaker who reminded you, often forcibly and somewhat against your will, that the word “auteur” contains most of the letters of “austere.” “The Empire,” another of the director’s proudly off-kilter comedies that pitches the bumbling denizens of a small French village into a vast, sinister conspiracy extending far beyond their foreshortened horizons, hovers several light years — and two janky light sabers — away from austerity. Unfortunately, though, the air out there is also a little thin on hilarity, with the film’s one-gag setup becoming stretched to the point that it doesn’t even matter that it’s a pretty good gag.

The humor, as ever with the Dumont of “Li’l Quinquin” and “Slack Bay,” derives largely from the collision of the grandiose with the drolly mundane. This time out, harking back to,...

French actress turned director Barbara Schulz’s Treasure Hunters: On the Tracks Of Khufu, has been acquired by France’s Snd which is launching sales on the French take on Indiana Jones at the European Film Market later this month

The film is Schulz’s directorial debut and will star Fabrice Luchini as an archaeologist who joins forces with his daughter and grandson in a race against time to find a hidden treasure in locations from Cairo to Paris. Julia Piaton will co-star.

Schulz’s acting credits include roles in Léa Domenach’s Bernadette/

Snd is also producing the film with Bonne Pioche Cinema,...

"The opposing forces are formidable." Time to battle the Empire! Memento Films has revealed a brand new official trailer for The Empire, the strange French sci-fi film from filmmaker Bruno Dumont. We already posted a trailer for this last year when it was first unveiled. It will premiere at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival next month, perhaps because every other fest rejected it. Bruno Dumont's sci-fi The Empire (aka L'Empire) is set in a quiet fishing village on the Opal Coast in Northern France, and tells the story of a child who is so unique and peculiar it unleashes a secret war between extraterrestrial forces of good and evil. Starring a big French cast including Virginie Efira, Lily-Rose Depp, Camille Cottin, Lyna Khoudri, Anamaria Vartolomei, with Fabrice Luchini. It's a bit weird how this trailer hides so much of the sci-fi until the last few shots at the end, instead focusing...

Memento International has secured pre-sales to Bruno Dumont’s The Empire to several key territories ahead of its world premiere in Berlin’s main competition and has unveiled the first English-language trailer for the auteur-sci-fi French film.

The Empire has sold to Njuta in Sweden, Vertigo in Hungary, McF Megacom in Ex-Yugoslavia, Scanorama in Baltics, Beta in Bulgaria, and Pt Falcon in Indonesia with more territories in discussions. The film will be released by Arp Selection in France, Cineart in Benelux and Academy Two in Italy.

Set in a quiet fishing village on the Opal Coast in Northern France, The...

The upcoming 74th Berlin Film Festival looks set to be its starriest edition in years with Kristen Stewart, Adam Sandler, Cillian Murphy, Lena Dunham, Sebastian Stan, Amanda Seyfried and Rooney Mara among the talent due to attend this year.

Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian confirmed the actors’ presence in an interview with Deadline following the festival’s official press conference on Monday.

“Yes. All the stars we have invited are expected to be here and have confirmed their presence,” he said, when quizzed on the above names. “I think the glamor aspect on the red carpet is a good one this year.”

Most are attending in movies due to be showcased in the Berlinale Special Gala line-up.

Stewart, who was at the festival last year as jury president, returns for the Berlinale Special Gala screening of Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding alongside Katy O’Brian, Ed Harris, Dave Franco and Jena Malone.

Berlinale Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian announced his final Competition and Encounters line-ups on Monday ahead of bowing out of the festival alongside Managing Director Mariette Rissenbeek at the end of the upcoming 74th edition in February.

News of Chatrian’s ousting by the German Culture Minister Claudia Roth back in September prompted anger in some quarters of Europe’s indie film biz. The seasoned festival programer made it clear at the time that he wanted to stay on but now appears to have made peace with the decision.

“It’s true that in the beginning I said I was willing to go on with the shared role. But then the people who are responsible for the future of the Berlinale thought this structure of two leaders was not the right one and I don’t consider myself able to run the festival alone,” he told Monday’s press conference in...

The Berlin Film Festival on Monday unveiled the titles selected for its official competition and its sidebar Encounters competitive section.

A total of 20 films have been selected for the international competition, with highlights including La Cocina, directed by Alonso Ruiz Palacios and starring Rooney Mara. The pic is described as a “kinetic and cinematic love story” set over a single day in a Times Square kitchen. French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop returns with Dahomey, a 60-minute doc about art repatriation and Hong Sangsoo plays in competition with A Traveler’s Needs, starring Isabelle Huppert. Scroll down for the full lineup.

The Berlin Film Festival takes place February 15-25.

Organizers have already announced more than 100 titles across sidebars spanning Panorama, Forum, and Berlinale Special. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, a feature documentary about influential British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger narrated by Killers of the Flower Moon...

Quick, silly and lent weight only by the costume department’s copious wigs and furs, “The Crime Is Mine” finds tireless French auteur François Ozon in the playful period pastiche mode of “Potiche” and “8 Women.” It’s a film less about any frenetic onscreen shenanigans as it is about its own mood board of sartorial and cinematic reference points — Jean Renoir, Billy Wilder, some vintage Chanel — and as such it slips down as fizzily and forgettably as a bottle of off-brand sparkling wine. This story of an aspiring stage star standing trial for a top impresario’s murder (and making the most of her moment in the tabloid flashbulbs) may be based on a nearly 90-year-old play, but for those versed more in Hollywood and Broadway than in French theater, Ozon’s adaptation resembles a kind of diva fanfic: What if Roxie Hart went up against Norma Desmond, except in rollicking 1930s Paris?...

Theatricality is the name of the game in The Crime Is Mine — for both the characters and the actors playing them. Even when the subject is murder, penury or thwarted ambition, everyone seems to be having a blast in François Ozon’s latest. Based on a 1934 play and set in the mid-’30s, the comedy opens with the image of a red velvet stage curtain, abounds in exquisite art deco flourishes, and is propelled by a screwball zaniness that arrives as a welcome antidote to awards season’s Serious Cinema Syndrome.

Sending up celebrity, the legal system and a medley of movie tropes, Ozon has spun serious ingredients into a zesty soufflé, albeit one that doesn’t avoid a sense of deflation. Led by two relative newcomers, with colorful support from a who’s who of French movie stars — key among them Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, Dany Boon and André Dussollier...

François Ozon’s fizzy comedy The Crime Is Mine, a loose adaptation of Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil’s 1934 play Mon crime, begins with murder, poverty, and a suicide threat. But the film delivers this material with such a bubbly optimism that it wouldn’t be a surprise if the cast broke into a choreographed number from Gold Diggers of 1933.

Set in 1935 Paris, the film follows two best friends fending off criminal charges, eviction, and professional failure. Struggling actress Madeleine (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) flees the casting couch of producer Montferrand (Jean-Christophe Bouvet) only to discover that he was later murdered and that she’s the prime suspect. Her roommate, Pauline (Rebecca Marder), a struggling lawyer, offers to defend her. Given the media’s hyperventilating coverage of other accused female killers, Madeleine figures that a splashy trial could help her and Pauline’s careers. Madeleine then falsely confesses to shooting Montferrand and takes Pauline as her lawyer,...

"Life is so different now." Music Box Films has revealed an official US trailer for the French crime comedy titled The Crime Is Mine, one of the latest films from filmmaker François Ozon. This already opened in Europe earlier in 2023, some may already be familiar with it, but it's only coming to the US this December. Madeleine Verdier, a young actress, is accused of murdering a famous producer – but did she really do it? After being acquitted in court, she begins her new life of fame and success bolstered by the attention, until the truth finally comes out. Starring Nadia Terezkiewicz and Rebecca Marder, a satirical commentary on cancel culture and the #MeToo movement with a tale of murderous women. Adapted from a 1934 play by Georges Berr & Louis Verneuil, featuring a murder's row of a supporting cast members: Isabelle Huppert, Dany Boon, and Fabrice Luchini. The Crime Is Mine is...

“Vive la paix, vive le cinéma!”

Irène Jacob, the president of Lyon’s Lumière Institute which runs the Lumière Film Festival, chose to mark the opening of the event on Saturday night with a solemn message of peace, a week to the day after the outbreak of renewed conflict in the Middle East.

“Tonight, we are really looking forward to this festival as a gesture of peace, because we do not forget what is going on in the world, the tragedies that move us, the wars all around us, the children and civilians in danger, the madness and the sadness of our divided world. Vive la paix, vive le cinéma!”

The message was in line with the spirit of Europe’s leading classic film festival, which has always made a point of being a window to the world past and present ever since its first edition back in 2009.

A host...

"The Prince of Darkness must be removed from the face of the Earth." Arp Selection in France has revealed the first look official trailer for a sci-fi epic called L'Empire, which translates to The Empire in English. It's the latest film from French filmmaker Bruno Dumont and was originally rumored to premiere in Cannes, though it never showed up. Now set to open in France in March 2024. "Between Ma Loute and The Life of Jesus, between heaven and earth, Bruno Dumont offers us his caustic, cruel and crazy vision of Star Wars." That's their description. A small village of Northern France is the battleground of undercover extraterrestrial knights. Starring a big French cast: Virginie Efira, Lily-Rose Depp, Camille Cottin, Lyna Khoudri, Anamaria Vartolomei, with Fabrice Luchini. This has spaceships galore, ethereal aliens, lightsabers, religious metaphors, French sex jokes, and all kinds of other crazy sci-fi things going on. Whoa! But will it be any good?...

Early last year we learned Bruno Dumont would next direct the science fiction feature The Empire, then said to mingle “the common life of the inhabitants of a fishing village on the Opal Coast [with] the parallel and epic life of knights of interplanetary empires.” Little else has been known since, other than once-cast Adèle Haenel leaving the project for fear it propagates “dark, sexist and racist” attitudes, mocks victims of injustice, and exhibits general disregard for non-white perspective. Not the press most would seek, but not exactly counteracted by French distributor Arp Sélection describing The Empire as Dumont’s “caustic, cruel and crazy vision of Star Wars” in posting the first (French-only) trailer, released ahead of the film’s likely 2024 debut.

Herein we find a scale well beyond anything Dumont’s yet mounted––so intriguing that one might overlook it’s also set in his Quinquin Cinematic Universe. Whatever trepidation Haenel’s comments can instill,...

Gaumont and Egerie Productions have announced they are teaming with Prime Video on heartwarming French-language drama My Mother, God, And Sylvie Vartan, which is the platform’s first French-language feature destined for a theatrical release.

The picture is adapted from the autobiographical novel of French radio and TV presenter Roland Perez and is inspired by his strong-minded Sephardic Jewish mother’s determination that he would live a full life after he was born with a clubfoot.

Her self-sacrifice and a consuming passion for the music of popular singer Sylvie Vartan enabled her son to achieve his dreams despite his difference.

Canadian director and screenwriter Ken Scott is attached to direct and also wrote the screenplay, adaptation and dialogue.

Filming will take place in Paris between September and November 2023

Leïla Bekhti and Jonathan Cohen lead the cast.

Cannes may get all the attention, but France’s summer film festivals are essential launchpads for local features ready to hit the international market. Here are the ones to look out for.

In August of 2011, a little French film about the bond between a wealthy quadriplegic and his fun-loving caretaker premiered at a festival in a small Southwestern town in France.

Now in its 16th edition, The Angouleme Francophone Film Festival was the first stop for global sensation The Intouchables, which went on to gross more than $445m at the box office worldwide and even get its own US remake...

"You forgot one thing. I'm indestructible." Netflix has revealed the trailer for the French streaming series Class Act, which is the offical English name. The original French title is Tapie, which is the name of the person this biopic series is about, but he might not be that well recognized outside of France. A relentlessly ambitious working-class man becomes one of France's most controversial public figures in this fictionalized biopic about Bernard Tapie, starring César nominee Laurent Lafitte. "It revisits the origins of the Tapie phenomenon, who didn’t start off quite so well, between a career in music cut short, small business issues, meeting Dominique, and his difficult relationship with his parents... In all this, his relentless determination, carried by a completely possessed performance by Lafitte." The cast includes Joséphine Japy, Ophélia Kolb, Ivan Murphy, Antoine Reinartz, Hakim Jemili, Camille Chamoux, and Fabrice Luchini. Looks like France's version of the businessman's rise & fall story.

Christophe Honoré has landed quite the cast for his next feature film. Re-teaming with daughter-mother team of Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve, Honoré also adds Benjamin Biolay, Melvil Poupaud, Nicole Garcia and Fabrice Luchini to the mix. Les inrocks folks confirm (what we had mentioned last week), filming does take place in late August in Paris and it’ll then move to Rome (Marcello Mastroianni’s home turf). We can chalk what will likely be a meta exercise as a Cannes competition hopeful. Les Films Pelléas’ Philippe Martin and David Thion are producing the currently untitled feature.

Honoré will likely take an intimate approach into Chiara Mastroianni’s world tackling identity and possibly the splitting of two personas — he is in a good position to do so as he has worked with the actress on six prior occasions – their last collaboration being the Un Certain Regard Best Actress awarded for...

Music Box Films has acquired the US distribution rights to “The Crime is Mine” (“Mon Crime”). François Ozon directs the comedy of errors starring newcomers Rebecca Marder and Nadia Terezkiewicz, alongside Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, Dany Boon, and André Dussolier.

Music Box is aiming for a theatrical release later this year with a home video release to follow.

The picture, based on George Berr and Louis Verneuil’s 1934 play, concerns a struggling actress (Terezkiewicz) and her roommate (Marder), an unemployed attorney in 1930’s Paris. Madeleine ends up on trial for the murder of a movie producer, while Pauline serves as both defense counsel and media circus ringmaster to both of their mutual benefit. Their post-acquittal life of fame, fortune and glory is eventually undercut by certain revelations.

“The Crime is Mine” marks Music Box Films’ fifth collaboration with director Ozon, following “Potiche,” “Frantz,” “By the Grace of God” and “Summer of 85.

Music Box Films has picked up the U.S. rights to The Crime Is Mine, the post #MeToo comedy from French director François Ozon and which stars Rebecca Marder, Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Isabelle Huppert.

A theatrical release is planned for later this year for the period film, with a home entertainment release to follow, the distributor said in an announcement timed for the start of the Cannes Film Festival.

Fabrice Luchini, Dany Boon, and André Dussolier round out the ensemble cast for The Crime is Mine, which follows struggling actress Madeleine, played by Tereszkiewicz, and her best friend and roommate Pauline (Rebecca Marder), an unemployed lawyer in 1930s Paris.

Madeleine secures fame after standing trial for the murder of a lascivious movie producer, with Pauline serving as defense counsel and media circus ringmaster. The Crime is Mine is adapted from a 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil.

Music Box...

Music Box Films has bought U.S. rights to “The Crime Is Mine” (“Mon Crime”), a period comedy by French helmer François Ozon.

“The Crime Is Mine” stars Rebecca Marder and Nadia Tereszkiewicz, who just won the Cesar Award for female newcomer, alongside Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, Dany Boon and André Dussolier. Music Box Films plans a theatrical release for later this year, followed by a home entertainment rollout.

Adapted from a 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, “The Crime Is Mine” follows struggling actress Madeleine (Tereszkiewicz), and her best friend and roommate Pauline (Marder), an unemployed lawyer in 1930s Paris. Madeleine ascends to fame after standing trial for the murder of a movie producer, with Pauline serving as defense counsel and media circus ringmaster. Upon Madeleine’s acquittal, a new life of fame, wealth and tabloid celebrity awaits — until the truth comes out.

The acquisition marks Music Box Films’ fifth collaboration with Ozon,...

No slot (yet) of Bertrand Bonello, Michel Gondry, Bruno Dumont, Robin Campillo, Catherine Corsini and Quentin Dupieux.

The opening film of Cannes 2023 is Maiwenn’s Jeanne du Barry, a period drama that delves into French history, was shot in Versailles and sees its US star Johnny Depp speaking French.

Un Certain Regard will also open with a French title, Thomas Cailley’s Le Règne Animal, while the Competition refreshingly feaures two films by female French filmmakers, Catherine Breillat and Justine Triet, and the new film from Vietnamese-born, France-based Tran Anh Hung,

Breillat’s rise-from-retirement film is Last Summer, while Tran...

Dominik Moll’s investigative drama earns awards in Paris for best film, director, adapted screenplay and more.

Dominik Moll’s investigative drama The Night Of The 12th enjoyed a big night at France’s 48th annual César Awards, picking up six awards including best film of the year at a starry ceremony at Paris concert hall l’Olympia on Friday night.

The film, which started the night on 10 nominations, prevailed in a competitive category alongside Louis Garrel’s crime-infused romantic comedy The Innocent, Cédric Klapisch’s dance drama Rise, Albert Serra’s political thriller Pacifiction, and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s coming-of-age tale Forever Young.

Playtime has a raft of EFM deals on the 1930s-set courtroom drama.

Paris-based Playtime has sealed deals in key territories for François Ozon’s starry period drama The Crime Is Mine, featuring breakout actresses Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Rebecca Marder alongside Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, André Dussolier and Dany Boon.

The 1930s-set courtroom drama about an actress on trial for murdering a producer has sold to Gaga for Japan, New Cinema for Israel, Bir Film for Turkey and Hes in Lebanon and the Gulf.

Gaumont will release the film in France on March 8.

“It’s one of the bigger movies of the first semester in France,...

Omar Sy stars in the World War One drama inspired by real events.

Mathieu Vadepied’s French-Senegalese war drama Father & Soldier (released in France as Tirailleurs), starring and produced by Omar Sy, has become the first film released in 2023 to garner one million admissions in France following its opening by Gaumont on January 4.

The film hit the ground running in its first weekend of release, selling over 456,000 tickets and taking the number two spot at the box office behind Avatar: The Way Of Water, but ahead of Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. The momentum continues as the film...

After “Peter van Kant,” French director François Ozon goes many shades lighter to revisit gender and power dynamics in “The Crime Is Mine,” a lush ensemble comedy set in 1930s Paris.

Loosely inspired by the 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, the film tells the story of Madeleine, a pretty, young and penniless actress, who is accused of murdering a famous producer. Helped by her best friend Pauline, a jobless lawyer, she is acquitted on the grounds of self-defense and becomes a star, as well as a feminist icon.

“The Crime Is Mine,” produced by Mandarin Cinema, brings together a sprawling cast, led by a pair of up-and-coming actors, Nadia Tereszkiewicz (“Forever Young”) and Rebecca Marder (“Simone”), alongside Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, André Dussolier, Dany Boon and Félix Lefebvre. The movie has been sold by Playtime in many key markets.

Ozon discussed his new film with Variety following its...

“The Crime Is Mine,” the new star-studded film by revered French director Francois Ozon, has been boarded by a raft of major distributors in key markets.

Represented by Playtime, the crowd-pleasing comedy had its world premiere on the opening night of the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris and drew laughter throughout the screening, along with a long ovation.

Lushly lensed in an idealized Paris of the 1930s, “The Crime Is Mine” brings together a sprawling cast, led by a pair of up-and-coming actors, Nadia Tereszkiewicz (“Forever Young”) and Rebecca Marder (“Simone”), alongside Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, André Dussolier, Dany Boon and Félix Lefebvre.

“The Crime Is Mine” has been acquired for Canada (Sphere Films), Spain (Caramel), Italy (Bim), Greece (Filmtrade), Germany (Welkino), Austria (Filmladen) Benelux (September Films), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Bulgaria (Cinelibri), Hungary (Vertigo), Baltics, Cis (A-One), Ukraine (Arthouse Traffic), Romania (Independenta Film) and Former Yugoslavia (McF).

Playtime scored these deals after...

Mon Crime

In his usual form, the indefatigable French filmmaker François Ozon filmed his twenty-second feature last April with the likes of Rebecca Marder and Nadia Tereszkiewicz toplining with an impressive supporting cast comprised of Isabelle Huppert, Dany Boon and Fabrice Luchini. Formerly known as Madeleine, Mon Crime (aka The Crime is Mine) set in the ’30’s and feature two young women tag-teaming against an unfair system. It’s an adaptation of the play of the same name by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, which begins with the murder of a Parisian banker. Mon Crime was selected as the opening night of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris.…...

Memento International has closed a raft of major deals on “Bonnard, Pierre And Marthe,” a period film about the epic love of renowned French painters Pierre and Marthe Bonnard.

Directed by Martin Provost, a Cesar-winning French filmmaker, “Bonnard, Pierre And Marthe” is being teased by Memento International at the French Rendez-Vous Paris. The company is introducing an exclusive promoreel to buyers at the event, which kicks off today (Jan. 11).

Now in post, the movie is expected to world premiere in the festival circuit later this year and has already been pre-sold to Germany (Prokino), Australia (Palace), Switzerland (Frenetic), Austria (Panda) and Denmark (Filmbazar). Memento Distribution and Imagine will release the film in France and Benelux, respectively.

“Bonnard, Pierre And Marthe” stars Cecile de France (“Lost Illusions”), Vincent Macaigne (“Irma Vep”) and Stacy Martin (“Nymphomaniac”). François Kraus and Denis Pineau-Valencienne at Les Films du Kiosque produced the movie.

The film charts...

La petite

There is an off-chance that we’ll be getting a double dose of Guillaume Nicloux in ’23. Currently working on Dans la peau de Blanche Houellebecq, Nicloux’s La petite is already set with a domestic September release this year. Filming on this drama began in August of last year around the region of Bordeaux and Ghent. The trio of Fabrice Luchini, Mara Taquin and Maud Wyler lead the project which in a nutshell is about a sixty-something father who goes to meet a fierce and indomitable young Flemish woman. This is based on Fanny Chesnel’s novel Le berceau and also features the work of cinematographer Yves Cape.…...

Running Jan. 10-17, Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris – an export focused market that unites buyers, producers, talent and press from film and television – will fête its 25th edition with a return to pre-pandemic (in-person) attendance numbers, and a once-more ebullient social calendar, rife with the cocktails, awards ceremonies and evening events that fell by the wayside over the past few vintages.

“We’ll have a renewed effervescence,” says Unifrance director of cinema, Gilles Renouard, of this year’s event. “People are finding each other again, [and] our goal was to get back toward a normal edition with our European distributors.”

Indeed, with 87 films brought to market and more than 400 international film distributors present, such figures mark highs unseen since 2019 – with those numbers bolstered by 100 TV buyers, who have come onboard once Unifrance merged with TV France International in 2021, thus creating a one-stop-shop for film and TV promotion.

“Our objective is not to increase each year,...

French sales company has unveiled its Rendez-Vous in Paris slate.

Snd, the feature film arm of France’s M6 broadcasting group, has sold Lisa Azuelos’ globe-trotting drama The Book Of Wonders and Eric Barbier’s adventure Princes Of The Desert to a slew of territories worldwide ahead of the titles’ world premieres at the upcoming Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris (Jan 10-17).

Snd will also market premiere Eric Besnard’s A Great Friend, Cécilia Rouard’s Killing Blue and Pierre-François Martin-Laval’s Jeff & Jean-Marc’s Adventures at the Rendez-Vous, and unveil first footage of Guillaume Nicloux’s The Baby.

Snd has...