News

Richard E. Grant has signed on to the Netflix comedy ‘Ladies First’.The 67-year-old actor will be reuniting with his ‘Saltburn’ co-star Rosamund Pike and joining Sacha Baron Cohen in the upcoming rom-com, which will be an adaption of Eleonore Pourriat's French language film 'I Am Not an Easy Man' ('Je ne suis pas un homme facile'), which was made available to stream on Netflix in 2018.The original film stars Vincent Elbaz as a chauvinist who ends up in a parallel universe where stereotypical gender roles are reversed.As well as Grant, Emily Mortimer, Charles Dance, Fiona Shaw, Tom Davis and Weruche Opia are also part of the cast of 'Ladies First', which will be directed by ‘Me Before You’ filmmaker Thea Sharrock.While it was previously confirmed Liza Chasin from 3dot Production and Four by Two Films’ Eleonore Dailly, Edouard de Lachomette would be...

Netflix romantic-comedy feature Ladies First is lining up its talent.

Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Emily Mortimer (Paddington in Peru), Charles Dance (Game of Thrones), Fiona Shaw (Killing Eve), Tom Davis (Wonka) and Weruche Opia (Genius: MLK/X) are joining the cast of the feature from director Thea Sharrock (The Beautiful Game). Sacha Baron Cohen and Rosamund Pike were previously announced to star in the project that adapts director Eleonore Pourriat’s French-language movie Je Ne Suis Pas Un Homme Facile.

Katie Silberman (Booksmart), Natalie Krinsky (The Broken Hearts Gallery) and Cinco Paul (Despicable Me) penned the script for the new film. A release date has not yet been announced.

Ladies First follows a womanizer who gets a shock when he is suddenly living in a world dominated by women, with an opinionated female counterpart adding to the complications.

Producers include Liza Chasin for 3dot Productions,...

Sacha Baron Cohen’s next comedy will be Ladies First – a remake of French film I Am Not An Easy Man.

Sacha Baron Cohen has had no shortage of comedy roles in the last few years, from his terrific satirical television series Who Is America? to Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, which saw him revisit one of his most popular characters alongside a star-making turn from Maria Bakalova. There was also a report last year that Baron Cohen was working on a live tour, which would see him revisit his breakout character Ali G, but there have been no further updates on that front.

According to Deadline, though, Cohen’s next film will be Ladies First, a remake of the 2018 French film I Am Not An Easy Man, which was written and directed by Éléonore Pourriat.

The synopsis for the original film reads as follows:

Damien (Vincent Elbaz), a brutish, shameless chauvinist...

Sacha Baron Cohen and Rosamund Pike are set to inhabit an alternate society in the Netflix romantic-comedy feature Ladies First.

Filmmaker Thea Sharrock (The Beautiful Game) is helming the project that adapts director Eleonore Pourriat’s French-language movie Je Ne Suis Pas Un Homme Facile. Katie Silberman (Booksmart), Natalie Krinsky (The Broken Hearts Gallery) and Cinco Paul (Despicable Me) penned the script for the new film.

Ladies First follows a womanizer who gets a shock when he is suddenly living in a world dominated by women, with an opinionated female counterpart adding to the complications.

A release date has not yet been announced.

Producers include Liza Chasin for 3dot Productions, along with Eleonore Dailly, Edouard de Lachomette and Four By Two Films.

Translated as I Am Not an Easy Man, the original film Je Ne Suis Pas Un Homme Facile stars Vincent Elbaz and Marie-Sophie Ferdane. It debuted on Netflix...

Exclusive: AI firm Flawless, distributor-financier XYZ Films (Mandy), and producer Tea Shop Productions (The Fall) have acquired Michel Gondry’s 2023 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight movie The Book Of Solutions for all English-speaking territories.

Directed and written by Gondry, the French-language comedy is the first film in seven years from the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep filmmaker.

It will be releases simultaneously in the original French language and converted to a director-approved English-language version using Flawless’ TrueSync AI technology, which became known after movies like The Fall. You can read about Flawless’ “visual translation” techniques and acquisitions strategy in our story here.

Pic stars Pierre Niney, Blanche Gardin, Francoise Lebrun and Vincent Elbaz and was produced by George Bermann at Partizan.

In the film, Marc (Niney), a bipolar and paranoid filmmaker, is having trouble with his latest project. With his editor as an accomplice, he manages...

Paris production house Agat Films – Ex Nihilo, which has six films in Cannes, is now in various stages of production on six more titles including Robert Guedigian’s drama Stealing Angel, starring Ariane Ascaride and Jean-Paul Darroussin that is in post. Playtime is handling sales.

Agat Films- Ex Nihilo are separate entities operating under the same banner. “We are a house of auteur cinema,” said producer Nicolas Blanc. “We are at the service of auteurs – we like what they think, what they say and how they say it.”

International titles in the works include Thierry Machado’s Inuit -language Yura,...

Julie Manoukian’s The Green Gang, about a band of modern-day Robin Hoods with a feminist streak who rob polluters and misogynists, has been acquired by Tfi-owned Newen Connect which is launching sales at Cannes.

Emilie Caen, Vincent Elbaz and Stephane Debacs star in the film now shooting in France, produced byYves Marmion at Les Films du 24.

Newen is also entering the ring with Varante Soudian’s Lucky Punch, about a small-time boxer who lands a lucky knock-out blow and goes on to risk everything to enter a major championship. It is produced by Alef Two with Les Enfants Terribles,...

Gondry is back!! The Jokers distribution in France has debuted the first official trailer for Michel Gondry's latest film titled The Book of Solutions, originally titled Le Livre des Solutions in French. This premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival a few months ago, playing in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar fest, and was one of our Top 10 fest highlights. The quirky, upbeat comedy is a very personal, meta story for Gondry about a filmmaker trying to make a film his way and all the challenges he runs into in the process. Pierre Niney stars as Marc, who escapes the city for a small town where he lives with his aunt and a small crew as they try to finish the film without all the producers chasing them. The cast includes Blanche Gardin, Françoise Lebrun, Vincent Elbaz, Frankie Wallach, Camille Rutherford, and Mourad Boudaoud. This is Gondry's best in years, it's...

When the film you’ve always wanted to make gets shut down by unconvinced producers, you have two choices: you still try to make it, or you make it. This is the case for Marc (Pierre Niney), an impressionable thirtysomething filmmaker, in Michel Gondry’sThe Book of Solutions. In an attempt to get his bearings, the bipolar Marc decides to get off his meds and take all the footage (plus his small crew) to his aunt’s house in the beautiful French countryside in the hope of finishing the film on his terms. The creative juices are flowing, but the work is arduous: how can one keep a seemingly doomed project together when everything is falling apart?

Gondry has retained the playful tone and occasional despair found in his equally whimsical Mood Indigo and The Science of Sleep, even as his newest is, by comparison, more rooted in the realities...

Paris-based Playtime has unveiled a strong Cannes film market sales slate, which includes competition titles “About Dry Grasses” and “Homecoming.”

“About Dry Grasses” is by Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who won the Palme d’Or in 2014 for “Winter Sleep.” The film follows Samet, a young art teacher, who is finishing his fourth year of compulsory service in a remote village in Anatolia. After a turn of events he can hardly make sense of, he loses his hopes of escaping the grim life he seems to be stuck in, and hopes that his encounter with fellow teacher Nuray will help him overcome his angst. Deniz Celiloğlu, Merve Dizdar and Musab Ekici are among the cast.

“Homecoming,” by French director Catherine Corsini who won the 2021 Queer Palm for “The Divide,” follows Khédidja, who minds a wealthy Parisian family’s children for a summer in Corsica. She brings along her own two...

The sidebar unveiled its 55th selection under new artistic director Julien Rejl on Tuesday (April 18).

Films from Michel Gondry, Hong Sangsoo and Cédric Kahn are among the 19 features set to world premiere at the 55th Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, running May 17-26.

Scroll down for the full selection

Incoming artistic director Julien Rejl unveiled the line-up at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday (April 18) for the non-competitive Cannes parallel section run by French directors guild the Srf.

Rejl said he and his committee chose the films from nearly 4,000 submissions and travelled to more than 20 countries to meet filmmakers and professionals across the globe.

The sidebar unveiled its 55th selection under new artistic director Julien Rejl on Tuesday (April 18).

Projects from Michel Gondry, Hong Sang-Soo and Cédric Kahn are among the 19 features set to world premiere at the 55th Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, running May 17-26.

Scroll down for the full selection

Incoming artistic director Julien Rejl unveiled the line-up at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday (April 18) for the non-competitive Cannes parallel section run by French directors guild the Srf.

Rejl said he and his committee chose the films from nearly 4,000 submissions and travelled to more than 20 countries to meet filmmakers and professionals across the globe.

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...

Screen’s team looks at which titles are lining up for a potential slot in either Official Selection or one of the parallel sections.

Speculation is mounting about which titles could make the line-up for the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which runs May 16-27 this year.

The submission process for Official Selection officially closes on March 21, ahead of the traditional Paris press conference in mid-April (the date is currently to be confirmed).

As filmmakers, producers and sales agents scramble to submit final titles, Screen’s team assesses which films from around the world are lining up for...

Exclusive: Sky Italia and CBC are among the international buyers swooping for Gallic content following last week’s inaugural French TV Screenings.

Local distributors are calling the event a success and are hopeful it will become a fixture in the international calendar.

Nine French sales houses held screenings events over two days as part of Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris at the Club de l’Etoile. With 106 buyers in town, deals were always likely. Deadline has learned Newen Connect and France TV Distribution were among those to strike international sales.

France TV Distribution sold library title Agatha Christie’s Criminal Games to Sky Italia Seasons 1 and 2. First airing in France in 2009, the light crime drama is a French adaptation of novelist Agatha Christie’s murder mystery stories.

“The Rendez-Vous Unifrance in Paris has been a great occasion for our full sales team to start the year with pitching our new drama series,...

Blockbuster docu-series “Magellan’s Extraordinary Odyssey,” action thriller “The Devil’s Leap” and the Vincent Elbaz-led detective tale “Everybody Lies” were among distributor Clpb Rights’ hottest titles at this year’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris, with the three projects closing broadcast deals in key territories.

Executive produced by François Bertrand of Camera Lucida, listing Arte France, Belgica Films, Minimal Films, Serena Productions and co-producers, and directed by François de Riberolles, the epic miniseries “Magellan’s Extraordinary Odyssey” retraces the 16th century expedition that saw Fernando Magellan and an ever-dwindling number of sailors complete the first-ever trip around the world.

Boasting visuals from illustrator Ugo Bienvenu and sound design from Oscar winners Samy Bardet and Nicolas Becker (“Sound of Metal”), the program pulled in more than 1 million primetime viewers when it was broadcast on Arte last November, and has since sold to Rtbf (Belgium), Movistar (Spain), Axess TV (Sweden), Rts...

Le Livre des solutions

More than seven years after the release of Microbe & Gasoline, Michel Gondry returns to features (he produced a lot of shorts in between) with a formidable cast comprised of Pierre Niney, Blanche Gardin, Camille Rutherford, Vincent Elbaz, Frankie Wallach and Françoise Lebrun. Production took place in June of last year in a Paris. Partizan Films’ Georges Bermann produced Le Livre des solutions.

Gist: This revolves around a director seeking to vanquish his demons which are stifling his creativity.

Release Date/Prediction: Berlinale might be a good first pit stop for the film.

…...

Vivants

Alix Delaporte will move into production in Paris on her third feature film next month – in a news media stratosphere storyline that includes Roschdy Zem, Alice Isaaz, Vincent Elbaz, Ludivine Sagnier and Pierre Lottin. Delaporte’s fiction features efforts to date include Angel & Tony (2010) and The Last Hammer Blow (2014) which was a Venice Film Fest invite. Look for synopsis info prior to the shoot. Previously titled as “La Fille à la caméra” and “Gabrielle,” Vivants could chart a course towards the Lido.

Gist: Tbd.

Release Date/Prediction: Venice Film Festival could be in the cards if this shoots out of the starting gate.…...

Angel & Tony (2010) and Le dernier coup de marteau (2014) filmmaker Alix Delaporte is finally climbing back into the director’s chair for a third feature film titled, Vivants. Roschdy Zem, Alice Isaaz, Vincent Elbaz, Ludivine Sagnier and Pierre Lottin (who had a pair of Cannes preems in Les Harkis and The Night of the 12th) will topline the project with production due to begin somewhere around January and February of next year with producers probably earmarking a Lido launch as Delaporte’s first two films premiered there.

Vivants will explore the world news reporters — something that Bruno Dumont had plenty of fun with in 2021’s France.…...

We tapped out of Michel Gondry cinema back when Be Kind Rewind was released, and suddenly the filmmaker is now at the dozen film mark with what feels like an alluring project due to the collection of players he has assembled for Le Livre des solutions. During Cannes we learned that Pierre Niney would topline the project. Lensing began this week with Blanche Gardin (out off the Critics’ Week debut of the funny-bone Portugal project Everybody Loves Jeanne), Camille Rutherford (recently seen in Cannes Premiere selected The Night of the 12th), Vincent Elbaz, Frankie Wallach and veteran thesp Françoise Lebrun (most recently seen in Vortex).…...

The Cannes market ensures there is no shortage of news updates, and so we have another round-up. The talented Marielle Heller has found her next project as Variety reports she is set to direct Amy Adams in Nightbitch. The adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel is backed by Searchlight Pictures, which will release the film on Hulu. With production set to get underway this fall, Adams will lead as a woman who is “thrown into the stay-at-home routine of raising a toddler in the suburbs, who slowly embraces the feral power deeply rooted in motherhood, as she becomes increasingly aware of the bizarre and undeniable signs that she may be turning into a canine.”

Following News of the World, Paul Greengrass has announced his next project. The Hood, set to star Benedict Cumberbatch, is a period piece depicting the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt. THR notes our lead will likely play a farmer leading the “major uprising,...

Exclusive: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry is readying his next project, which will be on sale in the Cannes market with French seller Kinology.

As previously revealed, in-demand French star Pierre Niney (Frantz) will lead cast on the buzzy French-language comedy The Book of Solutions (Le Livre Des Solutions). Plot details are being kept under wraps on the hot project, but we hear it will be about a filmmaker trying to overcome creative demons.

We also understand supporting cast will include Blanche Gardin, Camille Rutherford, Frankie Wallach and Vincent Elbaz. Producer is Georges Berman.

Oscar winner Gondry returns to feature directing after a seven-year absence. Meanwhile, Niney is one of France’s most impressive young actors, known for movies including Yves Saint Laurent, Frantz and the upcoming Mascarade, which is playing in Cannes.

The promising projects just keep coming at the Cannes market this year. As one buyer told us Sunday,...

The CrewElite soldiers and seasoned criminals know how to breathe under pressure in the cinema of Julien Leclercq. It’s what separates them from everyday citizens and inexperienced combatants who cross their paths in a gunfight or heist. Moments of measured calm preceding volatile action becomes a visual motif for the talented French filmmaker. One incredible example stands out in Leclercq’s oeuvre: Seconds before strapping a pillow to his chest and playing vehicular chicken with an armored truck in The Crew (2015), master thief Yanis (Sami Bouajila) exhales deeply while staring ahead with the keen focus of a shark. The shot seems to last forever.Honoring the cool-as-a-cucumber tradition of French crime cinema perfected by Jacques Becker and Jean-Pierre Melville, Leclercq’s films are kinetic portraits of professional specialists with personal blind spots. No matter how much firepower or experience they bring into conflict, individual vulnerabilities get exposed. Family members are used as bargaining chips,...

BBC America has announced new cast for Killing Eve ahead of the premiere of the fourth and final season of the acclaimed drama series. Camille Cottin, who recurred as Hélène in Season 3 of Killing Eve, has been promoted to series regular for the upcoming season. Additionally, Anjana Vasan (We Are Lady Parts) and Robert Gilbert (The Tragedy of Macbeth) have joined as series regulars and Marie-Sophie Ferdane (I Am Not An Easy Man) will recur in the series starring Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer.

In Season 4, Eve (Oh), Villanelle (Comer), and Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) are in very different places. Following Eve and Villanelle’s exchange on the bridge, the former is on a revenge mission, while the latter has found a brand-new community in an attempt to prove she’s not a “monster.” Having killed Paul, Carolyn goes to extraordinary lengths to continue to chase down The Twelve and the...

Guillaume Brac's film All Hands on Deck is exclusively showing on Mubi in most countries in the series The New Auteurs, as well as the retrospective Summer Light: Films by Guillaume Brac.Just over a year ago, the director of the Cnsad (Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique—the Higher National Conservatoire for Dramatic Art), Claire Lasne-Darcueil, asked me to write a feature-length fiction film for a dozen young actors from the class of 2020. With one proviso: I had to shoot between summer and autumn 2019, so that the film would be finished by the time they graduated.I immediately saw this as an opportunity to paint the fictional portrait of a generation, just like Pascale Ferran did twenty-five years ago with L’âge des possibles, written for a class at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg. Or the filmmakers of two collections, Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge and Les années lycée,...

Newen Connect, the distribution branch of Newen, the Paris-based international production and distribution company owned by French’s biggest TV network, the TF1 Group, has boarded a bevy of upscale international drama series, including “Lost Luggage,” “Memento Mori,” Christian” and “Agent K.” The Paris-based company will help finance and sell internationally these shows.

“Since creating Newen Connect in October, we have ramped up our teams, hired Leona Connell [a former exec at Sky Vision and NBC Universal] as EVP of Newen Connect, and got a larger presence in the U.K. as well as Canada to increase our input in the English-language drama landscape, and beyond,” said Rodolphe Buet, a former senior executive at Studiocanal and chief distribution officer at Newen.

The recently-rebranded division, which comprises more than 20 executives located in Paris, London, Montreal, New York and Buenos Aires, is increasingly looking to team up ambitious third-party producers on premium drama projects at an early stage,...

Gaumont is reteaming with the producers of “Belle and Sebastian,” one of France’s most successful family movie franchises, on “Vicky and Her Mystery,” another family-friendly adventure film.

Inspired by a true story, “Vicky and Her Mystery” follows a widowed father who moves to the mountains with his 8-year-old daughter, who is shaken by her mother’s death and has stopped talking. One day, while walking in the forest, Victoria discovers a puppy and decides to secretly keep it, not realizing it’s a wolf cub.

Now shooting, the film is budgeted at €6 million ($6.6 million) and is directed by Denis Imbert with a well-known French cast including Vincent Elbaz, Eric Elmosnino and Marie Gillain. The film introduces the young Shana Keil in the lead role.

“Vicky and Her Mystery” is being produced by Radar Films and co-produced by Gaumont, which is handling international sales and is introducing the project to buyers at Toronto.

The Trouble With You (En Liberté!) star Pio Marmaï with director Pierre Salvadori: "Write it down. I prefer being a bastard." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

New York's 2019 uniFrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema opening night film at the Film Society of Lincoln Center was Pierre Salvadori's The Trouble With You (En Liberté!), co-written with Benoît Graffin and Benjamin Charbit, starring Adèle Haenel and Pio Marmaï with Audrey Tautou, Vincent Elbaz, and Damien Bonnard. The morning after the première, Pierre Salvadori and Pio Marmaï joined me for a conversation on rehearsing a scene to find the "right rhythm and logic", editors Isabelle Devinck (Salvadori's In The Courtyard) and Géraldine Mangenot, Claude Lelouch's La Bonne Année with Lino Ventura, and Kim Novak in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Pierre Salvadori on Pio Marmaï's character: "The thing about Antoine is that he is running after a chimera to catch back the time." Photo: Anne-Katrin...

Jeannette, L'Enfance De Jeanne D'Arc and Ma Loute director Bruno Dumont will present Coincoin And The Extra-Humans Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

New York's Rendez-Vous with French Cinema opens with Pierre Salvadori's The Trouble With You (nine César Award nominations), starring Adèle Haenel and Pio Marmaï with Audrey Tautou, Vincent Elbaz, and Damien Bonnard, preceded by Clément Cogitore's Les Indes galantes. Eva Husson, Élodie Bouchez, Mia Hansen-Løve, Sophie Fillières, Hélène Fillières, Judith Davis, Mikhaël Hers, Emmanuel Mouret, Sébastien Marnier, and Bruno Dumont are are expected to attend.

Bertrand Tavernier free talk with Russell Banks Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Sandrine Kiberlain and Agathe Bonitzer in When Margaux Meets Margaux (La Belle Et La belle); Vincent Lacoste, Isaure Multrier, and Greta Scacchi in Mikhaël Hers' Amanda; Cécile de France, Edouard Baer, and Laure Calamy in Emmanuel Mouret's Mademoiselle de Joncquières (The Art of Seduction), and The Trouble With You (En Liberté!) - give some...

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and UniFrance have announced the complete lineup for the 24th edition of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, the celebrated annual festival that exemplifies the variety and vitality of contemporary French filmmaking, taking place February 28 – March 10 in New York.

The 2019 Opening Night selection is the New York premiere of “The Trouble with You,” the latest comic whirlwind from Pierre Salvadori (“In the Courtyard”), which was recently nominated for nine César Awards including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, and all four acting categories. A standout of the 2018 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, this hilarious yet tender film stars Adèle Haenel as a woman coping with the recent loss of her husband, and features supporting performances by Audrey Tautou, Vincent Elbaz, and Damien Bonnard.

“This year’s Rendez-Vous brings together established French filmmakers and exciting emerging talents in a lineup that showcases the artistry and innovation at the heart of French cinema,...

Empire International and Film Clinic board as co-producers.

Gulf region partners Dubai-based Front Row Filmed Entertainment and the Kuwait National Cinema Company have acquired Arabic-language remake rights to Italian hit Perfect Strangers (Perfetti Sconosciuti) from Rome-based Medusa Film.

Dubai and Beirut company Empire International and Film Clinic, the Cairo-based production house behind Cannes titles Yomeddine and Clash, have also boarded the project as co-producers.

Produced by Medusa Film, Leone Film Group and Lotus Productions, Paolo Genovese’s comedy drama Perfect Strangers grossed more than $20m at the Italian box offic and $31m internationally in 2016.

It also picked up several David...

A dingy apartment door is kicked in from the outside and a slick-looking detective bursts in brandishing a gun. Bullets fly, kicks are roundhoused, and the cop is put through an interior wall, resulting in his arms and fists fighting off one foe, while his flailing legs dispatch another in the next room over. This choppy, exaggerated melee is not the typical beginning to a film selected for Cannes, even one in the occasionally genre-friendly Directors’ Fortnight, and though it’s quickly revealed to be imaginary — a bedtime story told to a little boy grieving for his dead hero-cop father — the tone of merry lunacy sets the bar for Pierre Salvadori’s “The Trouble With You.”

The loopy plot follows Yvonne (Adèle Haenel), a police officer on desk duty who, two years after the death of her cop husband Santi (Vincent Elbaz) inadvertently discovers he was far from the crusading...

After the triumphant Directors’ Fortnight world premiere of his Climax, Gaspar Noé‘s latest descent into hell has taken the section’s top prize. The Cicae Art Cinema Award was presented this evening to the film which features a group of mesmerizing young dancers who fall into madness after drinking a bowl of LSD-laced sangria. Sofia Boutella stars.

Climax blew away critics and audiences here and was swiftly acquired by A24 for domestic. This is Noé’s first film to be selected in the Fortnight which is actually billed as non-competitive, though its sponsors regularly present awards.

The Argentine filmmaker who works mostly in English and French is no stranger to the Croisette, having appeared in competition with both his shocking breakthrough Irreversible in 2002 and fever dream Enter The Void in 2009. More recently, his 2015 sex-fueled Love had a Midnight berth. As with all of his films, Wild Bunch is handling international sales.

The film is a remake of Italian hit Perfect Strangers, and stars Bérénice Béjo, Suzanne Clément and Roschdy Zem.

French sales company Playtime has acquired international rights to Fred Cavayé’s dinner party-set comedy Nothing To Hide, on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival and Marché du Film next week.

A remake of Paolo Genovese’s Italian hit Perfect Strangers (Perfetti Sconosciuti) which grossed more than $22m at the box office and became a major talking point in Italy, its starry French cast features Bérénice Béjo, Suzanne Clément, Roschdy Zem and Vincent Elbaz.

The picture, entitled Le Jeu in French,...

Exclusive: French Riviera-set ensemble romantic comedy to co-star Adèle Haenel, Audrey Tautou, Vincent Elbaz and Damien Bonnard.

MK2 has acquired worldwide rights to Pierre Salvadori’s ensemble romantic comedy The Trouble With You revolving around a police officer who finds out that her late police chief husband was corrupt to the bone, a discovery that unleashes a farcical chain of events.

Adèle Haenel co-stars as Yvonne, a police officer on French Riviera who discovers her dead husband Santi led a double life after a criminal she is interrogating recognises her wedding ring as the loot from a jewellery heist he helped stage.

The discovery sends her life into a tail-spin. Her late husband was hailed as a hero by his colleagues and their young son after he died in the line of duty. She grapples with whether she should come clean about her husband’s true persona. Close colleague Louis advises her to keep quiet.

Louis is played...

Exclusive: Gaumont unveils Lemercier comedy Homecoming [pictured] and Kev Adams’s feelgood drama To The Top.

Gaumont has launched sales on Valérie Lemercier’s comedy Homecoming about a woman in her 50s who goes through a second youth when a change in professional and personal fortunes forces her to move back in with her parents.

It marks a fifth time in the director’s chair for popular French actress Lemercier after comedies including Palais Royal! and The Ultimate Accessory.

Lemercier also stars as the central character of Marie-Francine who has to contend with her over-bearing parents while rebuilding her life.

Edouard Weil’s Rectangle Productions is producing the film which began shooting April 20 for delivery in the second half of 2017.

Gaumont has also taken on sales of Serge Hazanavicius’s To The Top starring box office draw Kev Adams as a champion snowboarder with aspirations of taking on Mount Everest.

He heads to the French snowboarding Mecca Chamonix...

Exclusive: WWII spy mistress drama to star Kelly Reilly and Tim Roth launched in Cannes

French sales company Other Angle Pictures has secured a raft of pre-sales on John Hay’s upcoming post-wwii spy drama Lives In Secret, starring Kelly Reilly and Tim Roth.

“We’re very happy with this market in terms of the deals we’ve done and the great reception we had for our new and upcoming projects,” commented company MD Olivier Albou.

Lives In Secret has sold to Australia (Vendetta Films), South Africa (M-Net), Latin America (Cdc United Network), Middle East (Falcon) and ex-Yugoslavia (2i Films) and is in advance talks for the UK, France, Belgium and Japan.

Adapted from Sarah Helm’s A Life In Secrets, the film tells the true story of Vera Atkins, a British intelligence officer who trained and dispatched hundreds of agents to Occupied France.

After the war, Atkins made it her personal mission to ascertain the fate...

Gripping hi-jack movie The Assault was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on 6th August.

On December 24, 1994, when four heavily armed terrorists from the Algerian Armed Islamic Group hijacked an Air France plane, Flight 8969, bound for Paris at Algiers’ airport, the 227 passengers on board seemed destined for tragedy. After hours of tireless negotiations the plane was granted permission to leave only to head to Marseille for refueling. Mindfully avoiding politics and emphasizing only the events themselves, The Assault weaves together the violent and claustrophobic onboard drama, with backstories of the tough Swat officer and father Thierry (Vincent Elbaz), the determined jihadist from the slums of Algiers (Aymen Saidi), and an overly ambitious French Interior Ministry worker. Action-savvy director Julien Leclercq (Chrysalis) boldly returns with this taut, real-life thriller that culminates in an explosive gun-wielding standoff, which, at the time, aired live in front of an audience of 21 million television viewers. Leclercq...

Following last week’s release of The Players, with Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin (The Artist) co-starring in the lead, we have a handful of new international films reaching the shelves this week, with three more films from France and two from Asia leading the pack.

We’ve also got a few excellent films to add to Play.com’s exclusive new Blu-ray Steelbook releases, in tandem with Universal’s 100th Anniversary, so with that in mind:

My picks of the week:

Shion Sono’s Himizu & David and Stéphane Foenkinos’ Delicacy

With the Blu-ray Steelbook re-release of Serenity a must-buy for fans/collectors.

Himizu Iframe Embed for Youtube

DVD and Blu-ray

Debuting at the Venice Film Festival last year, where it came away with the Marcello Mastroianni Award, Shion Sono’s Himizu has been receiving critical acclaim ever since in its film festivals tour ever since. The film was given a limited...

Based on the true story of Flight 8969, French hijack thriller The Assault comes to DVD and Blu-ray on Monday 6th August. To celebrate we have 3 copies of the Blu-Ray to give away.

On December 24, 1994, when four heavily armed terrorists from the Algerian Armed Islamic Group hijacked an Air France plane, Flight 8969, bound for Paris at Algiers’ airport, the 227 passengers on board seemed destined for tragedy. After hours of tireless negotiations the plane was granted permission to leave only to head to Marseille for refuelling. Mindfully avoiding politics and emphasizing only the events themselves, The Assault weaves together the violent and claustrophobic onboard drama, with backstories of the tough Swat officer and father Thierry (Vincent Elbaz), the determined jihadist from the slums of Algiers (Aymen Saidi), and an overly ambitious French Interior Ministry worker. Action-savvy director Julien Leclercq (Chrysalis) boldly returns with this taut, real-life thriller that culminates in an explosive gun-wielding standoff,...

Damsels In Distress (12A)

(Whit Stillman, 2011, Us) Greta Gerwig, Analeigh Tipton, Adam Brody, Ryan Metcalf, Megalyn Echikunwoke. 99 mins

Stillman casts a wry eye across the college campus, and settles on Gerwig's clique of preppy girls who confuse charity with condescension. The result is distinctively articulate, witty, gently surreal and hilariously sarcastic. But as well as parodying these misguided teens, Stillman clearly has great sympathy for them. It's good to have him back.

Avengers Assemble (12A)

(Joss Whedon, 2012, Us) Samuel L Jackson, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson. 142 mins

Considering the lack of leeway Whedon had with this superhero juggernaut, he pulls off a remarkable feat, keeping all the plates spinning with as much irony as he can get away with. It descends into a numbing effects orgy, but it's fast and fun along the way.

Albert Nobbs (15)

(Rodrigo García, 2011, UK/Ire) Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska. 113 mins

Close's committed performance anchors this...

Rating: 2.5/5

Writers: Julien Leclercq and Simon Moutairou, Roland Môntins and Gilles Cauture (book)

Director: Julien Leclercq

Cast: Vincent Elbaz, Grégori Derangère, Mélanie Bernier, Philippe Bas

It’s fitting that in the tenth year of the Tribeca Film Festival, whose inaugural year took place just six months before the World Trade Center attack, the powers that be have decided to program a film about terrorism to commemorate the tragic events that unfolded on September 11th, 2001. That connection and the fact that Julien Leclercq’s The Assault is an engaging thriller justifies the film’s inclusion in this year's slate.

Read more on Tribeca 2011 Review: The Assault...

Updated through 4/30.

"At first it was about neighborhood," begins Eric Hynes in the Voice. "Then it was about stars, parties, and supersizing. But finally, for its 10th incarnation, the Tribeca Film Festival (April 20-May 1) seems to be about movies. Gone are the superfluous, attention-sucking Hollywood premieres (Tom Cruise on a Jet Ski, anyone?), and few are the big-name, low-quality vanity projects. Several years into a vital slimming of the slate — the fest topped out at 176 films in 2005; this year, it's a manageable 93 — Tff remains New York's largest film survey."

To celebrate Tribeca's 10th, we're running a retrospective of some of the best films the festival's shown over the past decade here at Mubi. Happy viewing.

"A notoriously uneven assemblage of titles, Tribeca aspires toward something like a mini Toronto, but despite, in recent years, bringing such important films as Jia Zhangke's Still Life and Mohammad Rasoulof's The White Meadows...

Terrorism thrillers are the kinds of movies that have become very commonplace over the past few years. While some can be fantastic (Munich), others leave one with a sense that it works as neither an action movie or a commentary on today’s world (Green Zone). Sadly, The Assault falls firmly into that latter category.

The French film, which is directed by Julien Leclercq, tells the true story of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group’s hijacking of an airplane going from Algiers’ airport to France on Christmas Eve in 1994. All of the passengers were at a great danger, and the picture does an effective job of evoking that feeling. These aren’t terrorists who are all bark and no bite. We see them kill several hostages, and they aren’t willing to give in to any requests from negotiators.

On the other side of this conflict is our lead, Thierry...

PARIS -- Star power is the name of the game for French commercial network TF1, which on Monday unveiled a schedule that is rich with specially commissioned French fiction formats featuring local and international stars. This year's diverse crop of French fiction includes Julie Chevalier de Maupin, a 17th century drama set in Versailles starring Pierre Arditi and Sarah Biasini in the title role. Emmanuelle Beart, Tcheky Karyo, Vincent Elbaz and Heino Ferch will star in D'Artagnan et les 3 mousquetaires, an adaptation of The Three Musketeers. Gerard Depardieu will play Volpone, the 15th century Italian adventurer and crook, while Bernard Giraudeau plays an ace detective trying to crack a murder in Dans la tete du tueur (In the Killer's Head). Also scheduled for the coming year is Premier Secours, a fiction series about medical and fire emergency services in Paris.

Bac Films

PARIS -- For the follow-up to his highly successful "L'Auberge Espagnol", director Cedric Klapisch changes register to dive into the seedy world of Paris' criminal class with considerably less ease.

It appears the 15-30 age group that flocked in their thousands to "L'Auberge Espagnol" are giving this darker, more violent Klapisch a wide berth. The film has had more than 176,000 admissions so far.

"Ni Pour, Ni Contre" tracks the fall of a young TV camerawoman, Caty (Marie Gillain), after she becomes involved with a group of three aging petty criminals and their enigmatic leader, Jean (Vincent Elbaz). The gang lives hand-to-mouth until the day Jean plans a daring bank robbery. Although other gang members feel out of their league, Jean persuades them to take part. The robbery goes badly wrong, and Caty finds herself in a hellish world of betrayal, violence and murder.

Such a banal plot needs a cast of exceptional characters to bring it to life. Contemporary directors like Quentin Tarantino show how memorable personalities can be discovered in the most mundane situations. Klapisch's outlaws, however, never rise above the ordinary. Rather, they come across as swaggering adolescents. Full of macho posturing, they are amateurish and endlessly fascinated with the perks of the "job" -- powerful guns, fast cars, high-class prostitutes.

Caty's willingness to go along with this gang of thirtysomething juvenile delinquents beggars belief. Just why she does is never explored by Klapisch. A halfhearted love affair between her and Jean fails to ignite. The suggestion that she is new to Paris and lonely is hardly reason enough for the moral vacuum into which she falls.

Elbaz is highly credible as the charming rogue, but Gillain never gets her teeth into her role. She stumbles through the film looking lost and confused, a feeling the audience shares.