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"Will you sacrifice me for your revenge?" "It isn't revenge. It's justice." Samuel Goldwyn Films has unveiled a new official US trailer for The Count of Monte-Cristo, which first premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Now set for a US release in December - catch this one in theaters! It's yet another new Alexandre Dumas adaptation, written & directed by the two writers who made The Three Musketeers movies recently, though this time they're also directing. A new take on the famous novel by Dumas, about a man who gets revenge after being unfairly imprisoned. It has been adapted many times before, most notably in 2002 with Jim Caviezel & Guy Pearce; in 1975 with Richard Chamberlain & Trevor Howard; and the Og classic in 1934 with Robert Donat & Elissa Landi. Starring Pierre Niney as Edmond, Anaïs Demoustier as Mercédès, Bastien Bouillon, Anamaria Vartolomei, Laurent Lafitte, & Julien De Saint Jean. After 14 years in...

Japanese black-and-white film Teki Cometh took the top Tokyo Grand Prix prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

The film also won Best Director for Yoshida Daihachi and Best Actor for Nagatsuka Kyozo.

Teki Cometh is based on a novel by Tsutsui Yasutaka. The film follows Watanabe Gisuke, a 77-year-old widower and retired college professor of French literature, living alone in an old Japanese-style house his grandfather had built. However, one day, an unsettling message appears on his computer saying that the enemy is coming.

The festival’s Special Jury Prize went to Colombian film Adios Amigo by Ivan D. Gaona.

Anamaria Vartolomei from Traffic took the Best Actress prize.

Chinese film My Friend An Delie, the debut feature by actor-director Dong Zijian, received the award for Best Artistic Contribution.

The Audience Award went to Yang Lina’s Big World, which follows Chunhu, who has cerebral palsy. During one summer,...

Yoshida Daihachis Romanverfilmung ist zum Abschluss des Tokyo International Film Festival dreimal ausgezeichnet worden, u.a. als bester Film.

Beim Tokyo International Film Festival dreifach ausgezeichnet: „Taki Cometh“ (Credit: Tokyo International Film Festival)

Mit insgesamt drei Auszeichnungen war Yoshida Daihachis Verfilmung von Tsutsui Yasutakas Roman „Teki Cometh“ der große Gewinner beim Tokyo International Film Festival.

Bei der Preisverleihung am gestrigen Abend wurde die Geschichte eines pensionierten Professors für französische Literatur, der gelegentlich Gastvorlesungen hält und sein eigenes Ende plant, je nachdem, wann sein Geld aufgebraucht sein wird, als bester Film, Daihachi für die beste Regie und Nagatsuka Kyozo als bester Hauptdarsteller.

Der Preis für die beste Darstellerin ging an Anamaria Vartolomei für ihre Rolle in Teodora Ana Mihais rumänischem Drama „Traffic“, mit dem Spezialpreis der Jurywurde Ivan D. Gaonas im Jahr 1902 spielender Spaghettiwestern „Adios Al Amigo“ ausgezeichnet.

Alle Gewinner des Tokyo International Film Festival im Überblick...

Yoshida Daihachi’s black and white drama Teki Cometh dominated the awards ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF)today (November 6), winning the grand prix and the prizes for best director,and best actor.

Based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the film centres around a retired and widowed college professor who receives a sudden and unsettling message telling him that the enemy is coming.The film marks the latest in a string of literary adaptations from Daihachi including Pale Moon, The Kirishima Thing, and Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! which premiered at Cannes Critic Week in 2007.

Teki Cometh,...

Yoshida Daihachi’s black and white drama Teki Cometh dominated the awards ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF)today (November 6), winning the grand prix and the prizes for best director,and best actor.

Based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the film centres around a retired and widowed college professor who receives a sudden and unsettling message telling him that the enemy is coming.The film marks the latest in a string of literary adaptations from Daihachi including Pale Moon, The Kirishima Thing, and Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! which premiered at Cannes Critic Week in 2007.

Teki Cometh,...

Yoshida Daihachi’s Teki Cometh proved to be the big winner of the Tokyo International Film Festival’s major awards categories that were revealed Wednesday night at a glitzy ceremony in the Japanese capital.

Teki Cometh, a feature adaptation of a book by celebrated Japanese novelist Tsutsui Yasutaka, won the festival’s top prize, the Tokyo Grand Prix, as well as the best director honor for Yoshida and the best actor award for star Nagatsuka Kyozo. The meditative film, featuring monochrome cinematography, tells the story of a retired professor of French literature (Nagatsuka) who gives the odd guest lecture and plans his own end based on when his money will run out. Old friends and former students come to visit. During one of his rare excursions, he encounters an attractive young French literature student, played by Yumi Kawai.

The festival’s special jury prize went to Adios Al Amigo, Colombian...

In a stunning sweep of the main awards, Japanese drama “Teki Cometh” snared three top prizes at the closing night ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival on Wednesday.

The film was named as the Tokyo Grand Prize, or best film, winner. Its helmer Yoshida Daihachi was named best director. Veteran lead performer Nagatsuka Kyozo was also named best actor.

“Teki Cometh” is based on a 1998 novel by Tsutsui Yasutaka about a retired professor, Watanabe Gisuke, who is quietly living out his last days when he receives a mysterious message on his PC that his “enemy” (teki) is coming.

Lensed in black-and-white, the film begins as a record of his daily existence, from his meticulous meal prep – he is a something of a gourmet – to his platonic relationship with a former student (Takeuchi Kumi) that smolders with an unstated but evident mutual passion. But once the enemy announces his presence,...

Yes, that’s Billy Zane beneath those prosthetics.

The “Titanic” alum is unrecognizable as late star Marlon Brando in the first trailer for biopic “Waltzing for Brando.” The feature, written and directed by Bill Fishman, is based on a memoir by Bernard Judge.

The film takes place between 1969 and 1974, with Brando readying to shoot “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris.” During that time, the actor purchased an uninhabitable island in Tahiti and recruited Los Angeles architect Judge, portrayed by Jon Heder, to build the world’s first ecologically friendly retreat.

Richard Dreyfuss, “Emily in Paris” star Camille Razat, Alaina Huffman, Tia Carrere, and James Jagger co-star in the film, which is now seeking a buyer.

The film will close the Torino Film Festival and play the Tahoe Film Festival. Prior to its world premiere, “Waltzing for Brando” was picked up by Vmi Worldwide for foreign sales.

Billed as a comedy,...

Actors are often lauded for their striking performances or contributions to the industry, but some become immortalized due to their works. Marlon Brando is one such name who is considered to have revolutionized acting and the entertainment industry.

The Godfather actor was as phenomenal onscreen as he was controversial off it. Matt Dillon got the golden opportunity to step into the shoes of his senior but soon came to regret his choice. However, the American Dreamer star didn’t shy away from the role due to the actor’s tricky past. Rather, it was his legacy that made things challenging.

The reason behind the hesitation: Not the past

Marlon Brando created waves in Hollywood, charming the audience with his god-like looks and moving performances. The A Streetcar Named Desire actor had innumerable hits, but his personal life was embroiled in controversies.

Marlon Brando in The Godfather | Credits: Paramount Pictures

Jessica Palud...

Traveling to Greece for the Thessaloniki Film Festival has not stopped Matt Dillon from voting in the upcoming U.S. election. “I voted before I came because I had to vote,” he told journalists at a press conference. “When I agreed to come to Thessaloniki, I didn’t realize it was going to be in the middle of it. But, of course, I voted, and I will just say I voted for Kamala Harris. I feel strongly that she is the best candidate for me.”

Dillon, who is the recipient of Thessaloniki’s Golden Alexander award, is also at the festival with Jessica Palud’s “Being Maria,” in which he plays Marlon Brando during the shooting of Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris.” The chance of playing one of his acting heroes was something the Oscar-nominated actor “could not resist.”

“Brando is very influential not just on me, but all actors.

Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to “Being Maria,” a French movie revolving around the controversial production of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 film “Last Tango in Paris.”

Directed by Jessica Palud, the movie stars “Happening” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei as Maria Schneider and Matt Dillon as Marlon Brando.

“Being Maria” had its world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it was the only female-directed film selected for the Premieres section. It’s now playing at the American French Film Festival at the DGA. where Kino Lorber’s boss Richard Lorber will be receiving an honorary tribute over the weekend.

The movie charts the turbulent life and career of the late French actress Maria Schneider, who was a promising young actress struggling to break into film when she was cast by Bertolucci, then still rising as a face of Italian cinema, to star in “Last Tango in Paris” alongside an American superstar,...

Matt Dillon will be feted at the 65th edition of Greece’s Thessaloniki Film Festival, where he will present his recent film “Being Maria,” in which he plays Marlon Brando.

Dillon will receive the festival’s honorary Golden Alexander award on Nov. 4, before a screening of his 2002 film “City of Ghosts,” which was his debut as a film director and screenwriter.

Other honorees at the festival, which runs Oct. 31-Nov. 10, include Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, as previously announced.

“Being Maria,” which will screen at Thessaloniki on Nov. 3, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Jessica Palud, it revolves around the troubled life of Maria Schneider, played by Anamaria Vartolomei.

When Schneider, a young, struggling actress with promise, is offered the lead role in “Last Tango in Paris,” playing opposite Brando, her dreams seem to be coming true. But what seems like a big break turns...

Teodora Ana Mihai’s “Traffic” was named the winner of the 40th Warsaw Film Festival on Saturday. The film was written by Cristian Mungiu, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and stars “Happening” lead actor Anamaria Vartolomei.

“Traffic” focuses on Romanian immigrants in Belgium, who go from unwanted second-class citizens to very much wanted criminals, as they decide to stage a heist that will change their lives forever.

You can watch the trailer here:

“I was excited about the opportunity to work closely with Cristian Mungiu, as he was also co-producing the project. I anticipated it would be an intense and challenging experience, but I don’t shy away from challenges, as I demonstrated with [previous film] ‘La Civil,’” Mihai told Variety.

“I believe Cristian and I have always shared a similar understanding of the themes explored in this film, which camouflages...

Belgian-Romanian director Teodora Ana Mihai, who made a spectacular fiction feature debut with “La Civil,” continues to blend genres in her next film “Traffic,” where politically charged social drama meets heist movie. “Traffic” makes its world premiere as the closing film of the Warsaw Film Festival and has its Asian premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

The film’s screenplay was written by Cristian Mungiu, Palme d’Or winner for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and stars “Happening” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei, who starred recently in Cannes entry “Being Maria.”

While “La Civil” fused investigative thriller and social realism, focusing on a mother’s search for her kidnapped daughter, now it’s all about Romanian immigrants in Belgium, tired of being treated as second-class citizens.

Referring to Mungiu’s involvement, Mihai tells Variety: “For me, it’s an ‘auteur’ film. I was asked to carry someone’s brainchild into existence,...

Filming for the new French Max Original series “Merteuil” has begun in Normandy, France. The series, directed by Jessica Palud, stars Anamaria Vartolomei, Diane Kruger, Vincent Lacoste, and Lucas Bravo. Production began on September 4 and will continue across various locations in France until December. The series utilizes a mix of grand and intimate locations, […]

“Merteuil” Begins Production in Normandy for Max Original Series...

At long last, the official trailer for Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17 has arrived, offering a delightfully bizarre first look at the 3x Academy Award-winning director's upcoming sci-fi film starring The Batman star Robert Pattinson in the lead role as a disposable employee who repeatedly killed and cloned, during an effort to colonize a mysterious new ice world.

As per the trailer, the seventeenth iteration wll take center stage in the film, and there's plenty of twists and turns heading our way as he finds himself face to face with a multiple...

In addition to Pattinson, the cast features Robert Pattinson as Mickey Barnes, Naomi Ackie (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody), Steven Yeun (Minari; The Walking Dead), Toni Collette (Hereditary; The Sixth Sense), Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight; Avengers: Endgame), Holliday Grainger (The Borgias; Animals), Anamaria Vartolomei (Happening; My Revolution), Thomas Turgoose (This Is England...

Cameras have started rolling in Normandy on Max’s new French series Merteuil, starring Anamaria Vartolomei, Diane Kruger, Vincent Lacoste, and Lucas Bravo.

Jessica Palud (Being Maria) directs the series which will shoot until December in what Max has described as “grandiose and intimate settings, from the cliffs of Normandy to the châteaux of Ile-de-France.”

The series was written by Jean-Baptiste Delafon with producers including Nabi Productions and Felicita Films. The series synopsis reads: To be the hero of your own story, you sometimes have to be the villain in others. Marquise de Merteuil, betrayed by Valmont, embarks on a daring journey to become Paris’ leading courtesan. Max has described the series as a free adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

“We are delighted to bring to life ‘Merteuil’, a series that explores power games, manipulation, and moral dilemmas through complex and fascinating characters,” said Véra Peltekian,...

Production has begun on “Merteuila,” a new French original series for Max adapted from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 18th century classic novel “Dangerous Liaisons.”

Directed by by Jessica Palud and created by Jean-Baptiste Delfaon, the show stars Anamaria Vartolomei (playing Isabelle de Merteuil), Diane Kruger (Madame de Rosemonde), Vincent Lacoste (Vicomte de Valmont) and Lucas Bravo (Comte de Gercourt). It’s produced by Clément Birnbaum and Joachim Nahum of Nabi Productions (Ugc Group) and Marie Guillaumond of Felicita Films (Newen Studios Group).

Filming is now underway in Normandy, France and will run until December. The ambitious show will stream on Max where the platform in available. The service launched in June in France and will soon roll out its first French series original, “The Confidante,” a psychological thriller (previously called “The Mythomaniac of the Bataclan”) based on a true story, starring Laure Calamy (“The Origins of Evil”) as a woman...

The American French Film Festival (previously called Colcoa) is back with a bang after being canceled last year due to the WGA and SAG/AFTRA strikes.

The 28th edition of the festival will play two of the year’s most buzzed-about French movies, Jacques Audiard’s redemption thriller “Emilia Pérez” and epic adventure film “The Count of Monte Cristo.” They’re also two of the four films submitted by France’s Oscars committee for the international feature film race.

“Emilia Pérez,” which won two prizes at Cannes and played at both Telluride and Toronto, will kick off festivities on opening night, as part of a red-carpet event presented in association with Netflix on Oct. 29; and “The Count of Monte Cristo,” a sweeping three-hour period film starring Pierre Niney in the titular role, be play on closing night on Nov. 3.

A genre-defying musical thriller, “Emilia Perez” won the jury prize at...

France has unveiled the four titles in the running to represent it in the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards.

They are:

All We Imagine as Light by Payal Kapadia The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthieu Delaporte Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie

This year’s candidate is being decided by a restructured selection committee – featuring Venice Golden Lion winner Audrey Diwan and Oscar winners, writer, director and producer Florian Zeller and producer Patrick Wachsberger – as...

Earlier last month we reported that actresses Léa Drucker and Noémie Merlant were going to topline Laura Wandel’s highly anticipated sophomore feature, L’Intérêt d’Adam. We now learn via the Cineuropa folks that Anamaria Vartolomei will instead take the role that was originally assigned to Merlant. Vartolomei recently gave a masterful performance in Jessica Palud’s Being Maria (read review) and has Ana Teodora Mihai’s highly anticipated Heysel 85 in the pipeline. Production begins tomorrow until the first week of September and we’ll likely be looking at a possible Cannes premiere – a competition slot is not out of the cards.…...

While watching the latest take on Alexandre Dumas’ literary classic, this time by directors Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte (who just adapted Dumas’ The Three Musketeers in 2023), I wondered if I was enjoying myself for the wrong reasons. With a high budget (making it the most-expensive French film of 2024), a starry cast, and all the grandeur of a full-blown cinematic epic, The Count of Monte Cristo is big, blockbuster filmmaking of the French kind. And while these large-scale productions typically get the life taken from them by committee in Hollywood, this film’s stone-faced commitment to executing such silly spectacle makes for an uneven, mostly good time.

Directors de La Patellière and Delaporte, who also wrote the screenplay, keep the general story largely the same, with various tweaks to characters and subplots that streamline the narrative (even its nearly three-hour runtime wouldn’t be enough to cover the...

Disaster Documentaries

Content creation and distribution company BossaNova has sold two documentaries to Channel 4 in the U.K. The deals, brokered by Channel 4 acquisitions executive Felix Jones and BossaNova head of sales Holly Cowdery, feature shows from ITN Productions and BriteSpark Films.

ITN’s “MH17: The Plane Crash that Shook the World” marks the 10th anniversary of the Malaysian Airlines tragedy. The one-hour special includes interviews with victims’ families, journalist Matt Frei, and prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer. It explores the incident’s impact on Ukraine’s war readiness and international relations. BriteSpark’s two-part series “Tsunami, The Day The Wave Hit” chronicles the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster. Using firsthand accounts and archival footage, it details the immediate aftermath and long-term consequences of the event that claimed nearly 230,000 lives.

BBC Breadth

The Beeb’s international audience remains robust, hitting 450 million weekly viewers in 2024, according to its latest Global Audience Measurement.

Last year, in bold defiance of post-pandemic doomsayers, French distributor Pathé doubled down on its commitment to the big-screen experience with its extravagant, no-expense-spared adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers” — a starry two-part tentpole that featured dynamic single-take swashbuckling sequences and a delectably wicked turn from Eva Green. As theatrical events go, it was fun, if not especially faithful to the book, demonstrating that the French could rival the Americans in showmanship.

This year, by way of an encore, Pathé delivered a sweeping three-hour retelling of Dumas’ crowning achievement, “The Count of Monte Cristo,” at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Whereas “Megalopolis” and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” swallowed up much of the oxygen at Cannes, “Count” premiered with far less fanfare but felt like a genuine triumph: a stunning, emotionally satisfying adventure tale, built on rock-solid source material. Compared to earlier adaptations (including an overlong miniseries with Gérard Depardieu...

The Fantasia International Film Festival returns with its 28th edition from July 18 through August 4, 2024, returning to the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screens and events at Montreal’s Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée. The second wave of programming has been unveiled, adding even more genre premieres to an already packed slate.

Come To Daddy director Ant Timpson‘s Bookworm (starring Elijah Wood and Evil Dead Rise‘s Nell Fisher) is the fest’s 2024 Opening Film. Fantasia is also hosting the World Premieres of the dark fantasy The Beast Within, starring “Game of Thrones” actor Kit Harington, Cannes’ hit The Count of Monte-Cristo, and more. The festival is also giving their Canadian Trailblazer Award to Vincenzo Natali, to be presented before the premiere of the new 4K restoration of his 1997 classic Cube.

The second wave of titles, from the press release:

Bookworm

Fantasia’s 28th...

Read all of Deadline’s Cannes Film Festival reviews below, including Palme d’Or winner Anora.

The New York-set romantic dramedy charts the story of a stripper from Brooklyn who transforms into a modern Cinderella when she meets the son of a Russian oligarch.

The film, playing in the official Competition three years after Baker’s success in Cannes with the Simon Rex-starring Red Rocket, scored a 10-minute ovation earlier this week. It was one of a number of critically praised films this edition. Check out all our reviews below.

All We Imagine as Light ‘All We Imagine as Light’

Section: Competition

Director: Payal Kapadia

Cast: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya KAdam, Hridhu Haroon

Deadline’s takeaway: And at a time when so much attention is being paid to the lives of the haves and the have-nots amid such financial imbalance worldwide, it’s refreshing to see the spotlight...

“Being Maria” is a flawed but fascinating look at the turbulent life of actor Maria Schneider, played by a game Anamaria Vartolomei (“Happening”). It limns her rebellious teen years, her big breakthrough at 19 in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris,” and how her trauma on set and the film’s notoriety impacted her subsequent career and mental health. Helmer Jessica Palud (“Back Home”) and co-scripter Laurette Polmanss loosely adapt a memoir by Schneider’s younger cousin to show events through the star’s eyes. Despite a clunky air of earnestness and some soap opera-like scenes, plus the overly familiar arc of a celebrity spiraling out of control, the film resonates because the central topic is so of the moment. It’s a cautionary tale about a naïve and powerless young talent abused in the name of art, as well as the agonizing aftermath of her maltreatment.

The narrative depicts...

Anamaria Vartolomei, the breakout star of Audrey Diwan’s Venice prizewinning “Happening,” is under the spotlight at this year’s Cannes Film Festival playing strong women in a pair of movies, “Being Maria” and “The Count Monte Cristo.” Both movies are supported by Chanel for which Vartolomei is an ambassador.

Vartolomei says since starring in Diwan’s drama “Happening,” which was set in the 1960s and centered around the then-illegal act of abortion, she has continued being lured to demanding roles with political and social themes.

“I think movies are the expressions of my engagements as a woman, and as such I often star in films that are engaged because when you’re an actress you contribute to change and we must continue to wage this battle that other women have led before,” says Vartolomei, who was wearing a glamorous dark khaki and black silk jacquard muslin dress by Chanel.

French producer Dimitri Rassam is enjoying a high-profile Cannes Film Festival as producer of Competition title Limonov: The Ballad and The Count Of Monte Cristo, which scored a rousing 12-minute ovation at its Out of Competition debut.

“It’s my first film in Competition, it has been a tremendous ride,” says Rassam, who is a producer on Limonov under his Paris-based Chapter 2 banner, alongside Italy’s Lorenzo Gangarossa and Mario Gianani as well as director Kirill Serebrennikov’s long-time collaborator Ilya Stewart.

Rassam is no stranger to the Cannes red carpet having regularly accompanied his actress mother Carole Bouquet in his early 20s, before mounting the festival’s famed steps in his own right as the producer of The Little Prince and co-producer of L’Immensità.

Cinema is also in his blood on his paternal side through late producer father Jean-Pierre Rassam, and uncle Paul Rassam, the long-time friend and collaborator...

Take your pick. There have been countless film and TV productions adapting Alexandre Dumas’ classic 19th century tale of revenge and deception, The Count of Monte Cristo. We have seen it in different versions in 1934, 1954, 1975, 2002 and probably up to 15 more iterations. Now we have the latest, the lavish widescreen French production Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, which had its world premiere Wednesday night Out of Competition to a wildly approving full audience at the Grand Lumiere — an appropriate place to launch this film as the screen might be the best in the world, and this movie is big.

In addition to all those past film versions on the book, there are countless other movies that have stolen from this complexly plotted tale. For some reason I kept thinking of the Ocean’s movies as, like this, they involve lots of complicated plotting, and once our title character begins planning his revenge...

Laurent Lafitte who stars in the latest version of France’s feature take of Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo thinks there’s twentysomething adaptations of the classic, but each one offers something different on the 1,400 page novel.

“You have to make certain choices,” said the pic’s co-director and co-scribe Matthieu Delaporte who sprung to the project with collaborator Alexandre de La Patelliere after their work on the two-part feature version of Dumas’ The Three Musketeers.

“We had a conversation with (our producer) Dimitri (Rassam). He asked ‘What’s your dream? It wasn’t deliberate and dreamt but we walked about The Count of Monte Cristo, and then it took off like a rocket,” says de La Patellliere.

The Count of Monte Cristo tells the story of a young man, Edmond Dantes (Pierre Niney), who becomes the target of a sinister plot and is arrested on his wedding...

Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière’s three-hour French epic The Count Of Monte-Cristo had its world premiere screening Out of Competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday night, eliciting an enthusiastic nearly 12 minutes of applause.

This latest adaptation based on the classic adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas stars Pierre Niney, Anaïs Demoustier, Laurent Lafitte, Pierfrancesco Favino (also a member of the Cannes jury this year), Anamaria Vartolomei and Bastien Bouillon — all of whom were in attendance for the premiere.

Star of ‘Le Comte De Monte-Cristo’ Pierre Niney blows the audience a kiss during an enthusiastic applause after the world premiere of the film #Cannes2024 pic.twitter.com/CpHOIGXrmz

— Deadline Hollywood (@Deadline) May 22, 2024

The film tells the story of Edmond Dantes (Niney), a young man who becomes the target of a sinister plot and is arrested on his wedding day for a crime he did not commit. After...

There has been a lot of noise at this year’s Cannes Film Festival about France’s accelerated MeToo movement, particularly by female cinema stars leading the charge. So whether coincidental or not, the world premiere in the Cannes Premiere section last night of Being Maria (aka Maria) seemed like perfect timing and more relevant than ever

Jessica Palud directs and co-wrote the screenplay with Laurette Polmanss (inspired by cousin Vanessa Schneider’s 2018 book) focusing on the life of actress Maria Schneider, who at age 19 was cast in 1973’s notorious sexual drama Last Tango In Paris, a scandal-riddled production from director Bernardo Bertolucci and starring Marlon Brando that got so heated the stars and director were even threatened with six months jail time in Italy upon its release, even as critics hailed the film as a masterpiece. Long before MeToo and the focus on treatment of women in Hollywood, Schneider...

When New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael wrote a long and heated rave of Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris after its premiere in 1972, she stated, among other things, that “this is a movie people will be arguing about for as long as there are movies.”

Kael may have been overdoing it when she stressed Last Tango‘s monumental importance, claiming it was a “movie breakthrough” and that it “altered the face of the art form.” But in terms of people arguing years later about the film’s legacy, she was spot-on.

Case in point: Being Maria, a new biopic of tormented French actress Maria Schneider, who at age 19 starred opposite Marlon Brando in the Bertolucci movie — a feat that launched her career as a promising new international actress while destroying her life at the same time.

The reasons for this are well known, and resurfaced over the past...

Forever Noor: Palud’s Schneider Moves From Being a Passenger to Saying Non

Since the advent of cinema, it’s been standard operating procedure for the film industry to chew up and then discard actress when they become difficult, old or inconvenient. It’s a man’s world—made by men, written by men, and controlled by men. Despite passing away in her late fifties after a life of abuse and deep psychological wounds and undoubtably not getting her day in public court, Jessica Palud’s biopic manages to achieve the impossible: reclaim her power for her. Following her portrayal of a shattered soul in L’Événement, Anamaria Vartolomei is perfectly cast here — embodying a fallen angel who may not rise from the ashes in the conventional manner, but who gains power through saying “non,” controlling conversations, and working on films that do not objectify her — Antonioni’s The Passenger...

The world premiere of Agathe Riedinger’s Wild Diamond in Cannes Competition is the only one by a first-time filmmaker and heralds Riedinger as part of a new wave of French female directors to arrive en force on the Croisette.

The film explores western society’s obsession with beauty and fame and the omnipresence of social media through the story of a 19 year-old girl who sets out to earn a spot on a reality TV show.

Also in Competitoin is France-born Coralie Fargeat’s second feature The Substance. The body horror is produced by the UK’s Working Title Films and stars Demi Moore,...

Exclusive: Ahead of its premiere out of competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to The Count of Monte Cristo, a new French film based on the classic adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, which it will release later this year.

Pic is directed Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière, who previously scripted two-part Dumas adaptation The Three Musketeers. Samuel Goldwyn Films released both installments, with Part I: D’Atagnan unspooling to critical acclaim in December 2023 before continuing to success on home entertainment and Part II: Milady releasing this past April.

Produced by Dimitri Rassam, who also produced The Three Musketeers, the film tells the story of a young man, Edmond Dantes (Pierre Niney), who becomes the target of a sinister plot and is arrested on his wedding day for a crime he did not commit. After 14 years in the island prison of Château d’If,...

Matt Dillon is taking on the legacy of Marlon Brando for a biopic about the making of Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial “Last Tango in Paris.”

Dillon portrays Brando alongside Anamaria Vartolomei as Maria Schneider for Jessica Palud’s upcoming “Maria,” which is set to debut at Cannes later this week in the Cannes Premiere section. “Maria” follows Schneider’s life after starring in “Last Tango in Paris” at age 19, during which she filmed an unsimulated rape scene with Brando in 1973 at director Bertolucci’s (Giuseppe Maggio) instruction. The film is based on Vanessa Schneider’s 2018 memoir “My Cousin Maria Schneider,” which was translated by Molly Ringwald.

Per the memoir, Bertolucci did not tell Schneider the full extent of the film’s plot until right before production. Schneider allegedly was unaware of the pivotal scene in which Brando’s character anally rapes her character using a stick of butter as lubricant.

Studiocanal has unveiled an exclusive first-look still of Matt Dillon and Anamaria Vartolomei (“Happening”) starring as Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider in Jessica Palud’s movie “Maria,” which is slated to bow at the Cannes Film Festival.

Palud’s film sheds light on the tragic life of Maria Schneider, who starred opposite Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Tango in Paris” at the age of 19 and never recovered from the shoot. The film depicts how Schneider was imposed an un-simulated rape scene on the set of “The Last Tango in Paris” by Bertolucci and Brando.

“Maria,” the only movie directed by a female filmmaker that’s set for Cannes Premiere, is based on “Tu t’appelais Maria Schneider,” a book written by Vanessa Schneider, the actress’ cousin. Haut et Court, the banner behind the Cesar-winning movie “The Night of the 12th,” will release “Maria” in French theaters on...

"Will you do good or will hate fill your heart?" Pathe in France has revealed the main official trailer for The Count of Monte-Cristo, which is premiering at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival next week. It's yet another new Alexandre Dumas adaptation, written & directed by the two writers who made The Three Musketeers movies recently, though this time they're also directing. A new take on the famous novel by Dumas, about a man who gets revenge after being unfairly imprisoned. It has been adapted many times before, most notably in 2002 with Jim Caviezel & Guy Pearce; in 1975 with Richard Chamberlain & Trevor Howard; and the original classic in 1934 with Robert Donat & Elissa Landi. There's also another new Italian-French TV series version of Monte Cristo in the works. Starring Pierre Niney as Edmond, Anaïs Demoustier as Mercédès, Bastien Bouillon, Anamaria Vartolomei, with Laurent Lafitte, & Julien De Saint Jean. After 14 years in the island prison of Château d'If,...

In a rather surprising turn of events, after Cannes skipped on premiering Emmanuelle––Audrey Diwan’s follow-up to her Golden Lion-winning Happening––the film won’t be at Venice, Telluride, or TIFF either as the 72nd San Sebastian Festival announced it will world premiere as their opening night film on September 20. Starring Noémie Merlant, Naomi Watts, Jamie Campbell Bower, and Will Sharpe, see the full announcement below along with a new still.

The French production Emmanuelle directed by Audrey Diwan will open the 72nd San Sebastian Festival in competition. The feature film will be screened as a world premiere on 20 September and will be attended by its director and leading cast.

Diwan, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival with Happening / L’événement in 2021, co-wrote the screenplay with fellow filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski. The film follows the steps of a woman in search of a lost pleasure, whose...

Films from Oliver Stone, Michel Hazanavicius and Arnaud Desplechin have been added to the Official Selection of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. They join previously announced titles from David Cronenberg, Yorgos Lanthimos, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Schrader. Greta Gerwig is the president of this year’s jury.

Stone’s film, “Lula” is a documentary about Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and will have its world premiere as part of the Special Screenings section, which also features “Spectators,” from Arnaud Desplechin. His latest stars “Anatomy of a Fall” child actor Milo Machado Graner as well as Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”).

Hazanavicius, a Best Director Oscar winner for “The Artist,” joins the Competition lineup with “La Plus Précieuse des Marchandises” (“The Most Precious of Cargoes”), an animated film about a Jewish child during World War II whose father, in a desperate attempt to save his son’s life,...

Cannes Film Festival has completed its 2024 Official Selection with 13 new films, including three new Competition titles.

Michel Hazanavicius’ The Most Precious Of Cargoes, Emanuel Parvu’s Three Kilometres To The End Of The World and Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig join the Competition line-up, bringing it to 22 films.

There are four additional special screenings, including Oliver Stone’s documentary Lula, about Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Also added are Arnaud Desplechin’s Filmlovers! [pictured], Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film and Tudor Giurgiu’s Nasty.

Un Certain Regard will open with Runar Runarsson’s When The Light Breaks,...

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,...

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...

"It isn't vengeance, it's justice." Pathe in France has revealed a first look teaser trailer for yet another new Alexandre Dumas adaptation, following the immensely successful The Three Musketeers - Part I & Part II movies recently. Their new take on The Count of Monte-Cristo is written & directed by the two writers who just adapted The Three Musketeers recently, though this time they're also directing. A new adaptation of the famous novel by Dumas, about a man who gets revenge after being unfairly imprisoned. It has been adapted many times before, most notably in 2002 with Jim Caviezel & Guy Pearce; in 1975 with Richard Chamberlain & Trevor Howard; and the original classic in 1934 with Robert Donat & Elissa Landi. There's also another new Italian-French TV series version of Monte Cristo in the works, but it looks like this film will be out before that is. A film by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière,...

Playing his signature brand of rural French absurdity in stark counterpoint to the grandiose strains of a space opera, Bruno Dumont returns with The Empire: his Barbarella bourguignon, his dijionnaise Dune. The Empire is the story of two warring factions: one whose mothership resembles the palace of Versailles; the other’s as if someone glued together two Notre Dames, crypt to crypt. It follows their envoys on earth, now in human form and attempting to capture a toddler who they believe to be the Chosen One––whose mere presence makes them bow down like bodies in rigor mortis. There are blasé beheadings with lightsabers, a group of men on Boulonnais horses who call themselves the Knights of Wain, and, for no apparent reason, the commandant (Bernard Pruvost) and lieutenant (Philippe Jore) from P’tit Quinquin.

If that all sounds like a mixed bag it’s probably because The Empire is...

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,...