News

The Swiss/French “Dog on Trial” is set to disrupt, move and entertain the Croisette from what is revealed in a first clip from sales outfit MK2 Films, exclusively shared with Variety.

The film world premieres at Cannes Un Certain Regard May 19.

Writer/actor-turned-director Laetitia Dosch, who delivered what Variety reviewer Peter Debruge called a ‘blazing-wildfire performance’ in the 2017 Camera d’or winner “Jeune Femme”, is herself taking a chance this year on the coveted award. Meanwhile Cosmos the Dog (aka Kodi in the film) will battle for the leather dog collar Palme Dog win.

As the main protagonist Alice, Dosch wears an attorney’s gown to defend the four-legged Cosmos, accused of multiple bite attacks. Known for taking up lost causes, she will rise to the challenge, confront the legal system and advocate both for animal rights and women’s rights.

Next to Dosch and the dog Kodi, the...

“Succession” star Hiam Abbass will play a role that is the polar opposite of Marcia Roy in French-Lebanese director Danielle Arbid’s age-gap drama “Love Conquers All.”

The Palestinian actor — who in the HBO series played the third and final wife of billionaire Logan Roy — will next star as Susan, a 65-year-old impoverished widow living in Beirut. There, she meets Osman, a young Sudanese immigrant worker without papers. They instantly fall in love.

The “Love Conquers All” project is being shopped in Saudi Arabia at the Red Sea Film Festival co-production platform Red Sea Souk by producers Georges Schoucair and Omar El Kadi, who say this could be the first feature Abbass will appear in after “Succession.”

The idea is that, while in “Succession” Abbass plays the shrewd wife of a very rich man, in “Love Conquers All” “the protagonists are both poor,” El Kadi told Variety. “What Danielle wants...

French novelist Annie Ernaux, whose novel Happening was the inspiration for Audrey Diwan’s 2021 Venice Golden Lion winner of the same name, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The 82-year-old writer is known for her body of semi-autobiographical works charting the lives of women and social change in France from the 1960s onwards.

Highlights of her literary career span her 1974 debut work Cleaned Out (Les Armoires Vides), A Man’s Place (1984), A Woman’s Story (1987) and her 2008 memoir The Years.

A number of her novels have been successfully adapted to the big screen, topped by Diwan’s Happening, which was adapted from Ernaux’s 2019 novella. Diwan, a novelist herself, consulted with Ernaux as she wrote the screenplay adaptation.

The powerful drama is based on Ernaux’s experiences when she fell pregnant as a student in the early 1960s when abortions were illegal in France.

Other features based on Ernaux...

The directorial debut of veteran French literary star revisits 1970s France through family home videos of the period.

Paris-based company Totem has boarded sales on Directors’ Fortnight documentary The Super 8 Years, the feature directorial debut of veteran French literary star Annie Ernaux with her son David Ernaux-Briot.

Ernaux, 81, is one of France’s most respected contemporary writers for her body of work capturing life for women and social change in the country from the 1960s onwards.

A number of her novels have been adapted to the big screen in recent years including Passion Simple by Danielle Arbid in 2020 and Happening by Audrey Diwan,...

Industry sources confirm that the seven-screen the Landmark Theatre Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco will shut down Friday. The theater’s website has no bookings beyond today, and distributors were informed earlier this week.

Although no reason for the departure has been announced, sources suggest it was the landlord’s decision to not extend the lease after non-payment of rent. Landmark did not responded to press inquiries.

Built in 1995 and completely remodeled in 2013, the theater has been a major Bay Area player in first-run specialized exhibition and one of the most critical national locations. It is currently showing “Parallel Mothers” and “Jockey” (Sony Pictures Classics), “Flee” (Neon), “A Hero” (Amazon), “Belfast” (Focus), “Gamestop: Rise of the Players” (Neon), “Red Rocket” (A24), and “The French Dispatch” (Searchlight).

It’s not the sole A-list specialized location in the city; these include AMC at the Metreon and Kabuki, Cinemark’s Century San Francisco Centre,...

"He gave my life rhythm. I measured time by him." Strand Releasing has unveiled an official US trailer for an indie French drama titled Simple Passion, from filmmaker Danielle Arbid. Adapted from the novel by Annie Ernaux. In this sexually frank portrait of female lust & vulnerability, a mother falls into an addictive relationship with a Russian diplomat, with whom she has nothing in common. This story "documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion." It was originally chosen as part of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival selection, but later premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The film stars Laetitia Dosch and Sergei Polunin as the lovers, plus Lou-Teymour Thion and Caroline Ducey. This looks like a cautionary tale about lust more than a story about romance. This trailer is Nsfw. Here's the official US trailer (+ poster) for Danielle Arbid's Simple Passion, direct from YouTube...

Colcoa French Film and Series Festival announced the lineup for the 25th edition of the annual City of Lights, City of Angels event, which is scheduled to take place Nov. 1 to Nov. 7 at the Director’s Guild of America headquarters in Los Angeles as it has been traditionally held. The event will be in-person and will feature 55 films and series screened live, 30 of which will be considered for Colcoa cinema awards. Among the films are also 19 shorts.

The opening film, screening Nov. 1, will be “Between Two Worlds,” which recounts the adventures of Marianne Winckler, a celebrated author who goes undercover as a cleaning lady to write a book on job insecurity in the gig economy. The closing films scheduled are writer and director Xavier Giannoli’s “Lost Illusions” as well as writer and director Arthur Harari’s “Onoda, 10,000 Nights In The Jungle.” All three of these films will be premiering...

“Happening” does not extravagantly announce itself as a period piece, though gradually you figure it out. The young women on whom it’s focused speak in a way that sounds more or less contemporary, if you’re not thinking too hard about it. And if their outfits are a little dated, the film is shot in such tender, peering close-up on their smooth, hopeful faces that you scarcely notice. But then it clicks: The guys are wearing ties, phones are absent, the dancing in an early party scene is rather quaint. “Happening” is set, it turns out, in 1963, and you soon wish it felt altogether more distant from the present moment. For our protagonist, Anne, is 23 years old and unwillingly pregnant; determined to do something about it, she immediately finds every door in her world closed to her.

Audrey Diwan’s quietly devastating sophomore feature is the latest in an ongoing run of tough,...

The feature is adapted from French writer Annie Ernaux 2019 on her illegal abortion in 1964.

French novelist, screenwriter and director Audrey Diwan broke into cinema as the co-writer of a series of thrillers including Paris Under Watch, The Connection and recent Cannes selection and box office hit Bac Nord with her former partner Cédric Jimenez.

She arrives in competition at the Venice Film Festival this year with her second solo feature Happening. Adapted from the 2019 work of respected French writer Annie Ernaux, it recounts the author’s struggle to get an abortion as a student in 1964, 11 years before abortion was legalised...

Production and distribution company Arcadia Films is set to expand with two new appointments to its management team in Bec Janek and Anna Dadic.

The duo will steer the company with founding partners, producer Lisa Shaunessy and head of distribution Alexandra Burke.

Janek will be Arcadia’s head of production, having already worked as a co-producer on its sci-fi 2067 and line producer for upcoming film Sissy. A former executive at Russell Crowe’s Ssm, her credits also include the Cannes-selected short film, Dots.

Of her new role, she said: “I have known Lisa and Alex for many years and I’m excited to join this dynamic and creative company in this role to advance their bold and exciting production output.”

A former theatrical agent at Hla, Dadic will be head of development, managing the current feature slate and expanding slate of scripted television.

Already underway in development under Dadic is...

Exclusive: Australian producer-distributor Arcadia, whose recent credits include Netflix pic 2067 with Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ryan Kwanten, has made two hires and revealed its upcoming distribution and development slates.

Bec Janek is joining as Head of Production and Anna Dadic will take the role of Head of Development.

Janek comes into the role after a close collaboration with Arcadia, more recently as a co-producer on sci fi feature 2067 and line producer on Sissy, starring Aisha Dee (The Bold Type). Prior to those films, Janek produced Cannes 2018 shhort Dots and was a former executive at Russell Crowe’s Ssm.

Janek will be responsible for shepherding projects into production and will take the lead on select projects.

Dadic, a former theatrical agent at Hla Management, will manage Arcadia’s feature development slate and expand Arcadia’s slate of scripted TV.

Already underway in development under Dadic are the sci-fi series The Immaculate Void,...

Les Films Pelleas, the Paris-based production banner behind Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s “Anais in Love” at Cannes’ Critics Week, is powering a female-driven slate with new projects by Justine Trier (“Sibyl”), Katell Quillévéré (“Heal the Living”) and Danielle Arbid (“Suzanne et Osmane”).

“Anatomie d’une chute” marks Triet’s follow up to “Sibyl,” which competed at Cannes in 2019. Les Films Pelleas is producing the movie with Marie-Ange Luciani’s Les Films de Pierre (“Bpm (Beats Per Minute)”). A departure from Trier’s previous films, “Anatomie d’une chute” is a procedural drama revolving around a woman who being investigated for the murder of her husband who was found dead. During the investigation, the detective first suspect an accident or a suicide and eventually believe it’s a murder. The key witness in the case turns out to be the couple’s blind son, who faces a moral dilemma.

“It’s a...

France’s 2.045 cinemas have been shut since the end of October.

Hopes of an early spring reopening for cinemas in France have been dashed by a Covid-19 surge over the last two weeks that has led to new restrictions in 19 regional departments, including Paris and the Ile-de-France, until mid-April.

“We’re now in a situation in which infections are very high but the expectation is that a month from now, things will be clearer at which point the government will be able to announce a calendar,” says Marc-Olivier Sebbag, managing director of the National Federation of French Cinemas (Fncf).

Alexis Mas...

Sergei Polunin and Laetitia Dosch in Simple Passion. Danielle Arbid: 'I don’t think there are that many films that are so physically explicit although in the current crisis I think we need to feel and see the touch of others' Photo: Julien Roche/Unifrance When Danielle Arbid was delving around for the subject for her new film Simple Passion (Passion simple) little did she realise that she had been carrying it around in her pocket for a number of years.

The Lebanese-born filmmaker, who moved to France at 17 to study literature and journalism, had wanted to find a book to adapt that dealt with love and sex in a frank and revealing way.

“I found Annie Ermaux’s book Passion Simple to be very intimate and powerful. I used to give it as a present to any of my friends who had fallen in love, even though the...

Cinemas may be closed, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any compelling, and moving productions finding their way to our (smaller) screens, for us to immerse ourselves in and enjoy. This week marks the digital release – exclusive on Curzon Home Cinema – of the brilliant French romance piece Simple Passion, starring Laetitia Dosch (Jeune Femme) and controversial Russian ballet dancer turned actor Sergei Polunin.

To mark the film’s release we spoke to Dosch about her beguiling and emotive turn in this Danielle Arbid drama, as she speaks about getting into the head of this complex role, and why she felt it was so hugely important to have so much trust in her director. Talking to us at the annual, and wonderful UniFrance event called ‘Rendezvous with French Cinema’, we also asked about working with co-star Polunin, and how the events of the past year have affected the French film industry.

Laetitia Dosch is sensational as a lecturer passionately embroiled with Sergei Polunin’s reptilian Russian diplomat

The French-Swiss actor Laetitia Dosch lavishes all her underappreciated star quality on this insouciantly explicit movie about amour fou and erotic obsession, adapted by the director Danielle Arbid from the 1991 novel by Annie Ernaux.

Dosch plays Hélène, a university lecturer in Paris, divorced with a young son, who has fallen passionately in love with an icily sexy, dead-eyed and tattooed young Russian diplomat called Alexandre, played by Ukrainian-born ballet star Sergei Polunin. When he is not driving too fast while buzzing from Scotch in his top-of-the-range Audi and giving Hélène top-of-the-range orgasms, Alexandre has a habit of not returning her pitifully submissive voicemails. He casually leaves her waiting in the midday hotel room where they’d agreed to meet in all her brand new La Perla lingerie, while he disappears back to Moscow to...

“Bad Tales,” a drama written and directed by Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo, has been acquired by Strand Releasing for North American distribution. Sold by The Match Factory, the movie world premiered in competition at Berlin in 2019 and won the Silver Bear for best screenplay.

The drama unfolds in the suburbs of Rome and is set over the course of a fateful summer. The film revolves around a seemingly normal family in which the devious deeds of fathers, and the passivity of mothers create a bad influence for their children.

Since opening in Berlin, “Bad Tales” went on to play at a flurry of festivals, notably Karlovy Vary, Zurich, BFI London and El Gouna festivals.

“‘Bad Tales’ is one of the brightest films to come out of the Berlin Film Festival, and the brother’s unique vision definitely makes them auteurs that fit perfectly in line with Strand’s eclectic library,...

Strand Releasing has picked up U.S. distribution rights to Franco-Lebanese auteur Danielle Arbid’s “Simple Passion,” a Cannes 2020 title that played strong on the fall festival circuit.

Announced as part of the Cannes 2020 selection, the French-language film premiered in San Sebastian, and would go on to play Busan, Moscow and Zurich ahead of a planned release in France later this year.

Adapted from Annie Ernaux’s 1992 bestseller, the film tracks an emotionally-toxic but physically combustible relationship between a Parisian academic (Laetitia Dosch) and her mercurial – and married – Russian paramour (dancer Sergei Polunin). Their relationship begins to curdle when one party shows more than carnal interest in the other.

Reviewing the film out of San Sebastian, Variety critic Guy Lodge praised lead actress Laetitia Dosch’s star turn, calling her a “vital life source” and noting that she “holds nothing back physically, but it’s her face, constantly registering shifting internal tides of desire,...

Roderick MacKay’s debut feature plays in El Gouna’s feature competition this week.

Cairo-based Mad Solutions has acquired Arab distribution and marketing rights to Australian writer and director Roderick MacKay’s debut feature The Furnace, ahead of its screening in competition at the El Gouna Film Festival (October 23-31) this week.

Set against the backdrop of Australia’s 1890 gold rush, the feature will have special resonance with audiences in Egypt and the wider Middle East due to the presence of Egyptian star Ahmed Malak.

The actor, who was a Screen International Arab Star of Tomorrow in 2018, co-stars an Afghan...

Sean Gunn, Eloise Smyth, Abraham Lewis, Nina Kiri, John Harlan Kim star.

Concourse Media has acquired worldwide sales rights to the dystopian sci-fi thriller I Am Mortal and will launch sales at AFM 2020 Online next month.

Tony Aloupis (Safelight starring Evan Peter and Juno Temple) wrote and directed the feature set 200 years in the future when the human race has achieved immortality through a genetic vaccine.

All war, violence and crime has been eradicated, but in this seemingly utopian society a small band of rebels seeks to overthrow the status quo and reclaim their right to die.

Sean Gunn (Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.

Natasha Phillips joins from ‘I May Destroy You’ production company Various Artists Limited.

The Ink Factory, the London and Los Angeles-based production company behind Fighting With My Family and The Night Manager, has hired Natasha Phillips as development producer.

Based in the London office, Phillips will report into director of development Maggie Boden, whose appointment was announced in April, and creative director Katherine Butler.

Phillips was previously head of drama development at Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong’s production company Various Artists Limited, with recent credits including a script editing role on Michaela Coel’s HBO/BBC drama I May Destroy You.

Danielle Arbid’s film was selected for the Cannes 2020 label and premiered at San Sebastian.

Pyramide International has unveiled a raft of deals on French-Lebanese director Danielle Arbid’s Passion Simple after its well-received festival premiere at San Sebastian in September.

In fresh deals on the back of screenings at San Sebastian and Toronto, where it played in the TIFF Industry Selects section for buyers, it has been acquired for German-speaking territories (Wild Bunch Germany), UK (Curzon), Portugal (Pris) and FunFilm (Quebec).

In pre-sales, the French-language drama sold to Japan (Cetera International), Cis (Planeta Inform), South Korea (Jinjin Pictures) and...

Festival spearheaded by Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux set to run in Lyon October 10 to 18.

France’s Lumière Film Festival will host 23 titles from the Cannes Film Festival’s special 2020 Official Selection at its 12th edition running October 10 to 18 in Lyon.

The festival spearheaded by Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux, in his other role as head of the Institut Lumière, is pushing on with the 2020 edition in the face of rising Covid-19 restrictions in France following a surge in cases in the country.

The Lumière showcase represents just under half the 56 titles selected for Cannes’s special 2020 Official Selection that it...

Despite their individual box-office success, the exceedingly mild Bdsm frolics of the “Fifty Shades” films did little to revive Hollywood’s interest in the kind of frosty, high-style erotic drama that was de rigueur in the early 1990s — around the time that French writer Annie Ernaux scored some international renown with her sexually frank autofiction novel “Simple Passion.” French filmmakers’ loyalty to such material has remained more steadfast, however, so it’s somewhat surprising that it’s taken nearly 20 years for Ernaux’s provocation to reach the screen. Finally, Franco-Lebanese director Danielle Arbid has taken a gutsy stab at it, with an imperfect but glassily compelling study of obsessive, finally debilitating desire that honors its source with an unblinking female gaze.

The result, publicly premiering in San Sebastian after being selected for this year’s cancelled Cannes fest, plays something like Catherine Breillat let loose on E.L. James, with all the sensual highs and occasional,...

The streets of the Spanish town are much quieter than usual.

The San Sebastian International Film Festival opened last night with the world premiere of Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival.

As in Venice earlier this month, face coverings and social distancing rules were required by everyone attending the opening gala and the red carpet was reserved exclusively to press photographers and TV cameras rather than the usual local crowds.

The Covid-19 pandemic means far fewer international names are attending the festival this year and the streets of the picturesque Basque town are much quieter than usual during festival time.

Nine out of 13 features will be presented as world premieres.

San Sebastian International Film Festival (Ssiff) is set to world premiere a raft of new features, which will compete for the coveted Golden Shell award.

The 68th edition, which runs September 18-26, will see 13 films play in competition from the Official Selection, nine of which are world premieres.

Scroll down for full list of titles

These include Harry Macqueen’s UK drama Supernova, starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, and UK documentary Crock Of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan, directed by Julien Temple and produced by Johnny Depp.

Titles include ‘Nomadland’, ‘The Courier’, Regina King’s ‘One Night In Miami’ and Venice opener ‘The Ties’.

The Zurich Film Festival has added 12 gala premieres to its 2020 line-up, including several selected for Venice and Toronto.

The 16th edition of the festival has secured Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, starring and produced by Frances McDormand, which will receive a simultaneous world premiere next week in Venice and Toronto.

Films set to receive their international premieres at the festival include Daniele Luchetti’s Italian drama The Ties (aka Lacci), which opened Venice on Wednesday, and Sonke Wortmann’s German comedy Contra.

Zurich will...

Industry registration closes on September 2.

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) organisers on Tuesday (September 1) announced a selection of 30 global acquisition titles outside the Official Selection.

TIFF Industry Selects titles hail from 29 countries and have been hand-picked by TIFF’s industry and festival programming teams and will screen to accredited users on the festival’s dedicated press and industry platform, TIFF Digital Cinema Pro. Industry registration closes on September 2.

2020 TIFF Industry Selects Titles:

A Good Man (France) Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar

After Love (UK) Aleem Khan

And Tomorrow The Entire World (Germany/France) Julia Von Heinz

Apples (Greece) Christos Nikou

Baby Done (New...