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Émilie Frèche’s feature-debut project has won an award at the first edition of the co-production market dedicated to films that aspire to make a positive impact on the world. Organised on 6 and 7 April as an integral part of the tenth edition of the Le Temps Presse Festival, the first iteration of the Cinema For Change European co-production market, dedicated to films that aspire to make a positive impact on the world, gathered together 267 professionals online and handed out awards to three of the 15 projects in its showcase. The Commune Image Award was bestowed upon In a Perfect World, which will be the feature-length directorial debut by France’s Émilie Frèche. Having originally kicked off last October before it was...

Together with Céline Sciamma and Léa Mysius, the French filmmaker has adapted three stories by the US graphic novel author Adrian Tomine in this Page 114 production set to be sold by Playtime. After a short detour into the world of series - namely the last two episodes of The Bureau, Season 5 - Jacques Audiard is now making a return to film, currently shooting in Paris on the set of his 9th feature film: Paris, 13th District. Starring in the cast are Lucie Zhang (making her feature film debut), Makita Samba, Noémie Merlant and Jehnny Beth (nominated for the 2019 Best New Hope César for An...

When his girlfriend can’t get pregnant, a trans man decides to carry the child in her stead in the French drama A Good Man. This is the latest feature from writer-director Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar. She here reteams here with Portrait of a Lady on Fire breakout star Noemie Merlant, who first appeared on the radar of French cinema lovers in Mention-Schaar’s equally well-intentioned female jihadi drama Heaven Will Wait.

The choice to have Merlant, a cis woman, play a trans man will no doubt reignite the ongoing debate about trans casting that last really intensified around the time Neflix wanted to debut their Cannes darling ...

When his girlfriend can’t get pregnant, a trans man decides to carry the child in her stead in the French drama A Good Man. This is the latest feature from writer-director Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar. She here reteams here with Portrait of a Lady on Fire breakout star Noemie Merlant, who first appeared on the radar of French cinema lovers in Mention-Schaar’s equally well-intentioned female jihadi drama Heaven Will Wait.

The choice to have Merlant, a cis woman, play a trans man will no doubt reignite the ongoing debate about trans casting that last really intensified around the time Neflix wanted to debut their Cannes darling ...

Endowed with the Official Selection label, the films by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar and Danielle Arbid spearhead a slate that also includes the upcoming Philippe Béziat documentary. With a line-up of nine titles, including two features stamped with the Official Selection label, French international sales agent Pyramide International (headed up by Eric Lagesse) will be springing into action at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film Online (22-26 June). The first film endowed with the label is A Good Man, the sixth feature by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar (who turned heads on the Piazza Grande at Locarno in 2016 with Heaven Will Wait as well as with the box-office smash Once in a Lifetime in 2014). The cast includes Noémie Merlant, Soko, Vincent Dedienne, Gabriel Almer, Alysson Paradis, Anne Loiret, Geneviève Mnich and Jonas Ben Ahmed.Written by the director together with Christian Sonderegger (Coby), the story revolves around Aude and Benjamin, who have been.

Writer-director Céline Sciamma’s entrancing historical romance about a young painter and her subject is a perceptive, erotic exploration of power

What a thrillingly versatile film-maker Céline Sciamma has proved to be. Having made an arthouse splash with the Euro-hits Water Lilies and Tomboy, she wrote and directed Girlhood (Bande de filles), a breathtaking portrait of modern “banlieue life” that completed her “accidental trilogy of youth”. Her impressive screenplay credits include Claude Barras’s My Life as a Courgette, a tenderly empathetic, French-Swiss stop-motion masterpiece that earned an Oscar nomination for its vividly resilient depiction of children in care. In each of these very different projects, Sciamma has struck an accessible chord by focusing tightly on specifics, finding the key to universal appeal in the unique, tiny details of each story and character.

For her fourth feature as writer-director, Sciamma ventures to a new world of the late 18th century.

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired Kamir Aïnouz’s promising feature debut “Honey Cigar” which was developed with the support of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and is co-produced by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, the Palme d’Or-winning directors/producers.

Set in Paris in 1993, the film follows Selma, 17, who lives in a bourgeois and secular Berber family. When she meets Julien in college, she realizes for the first time the impact of patriarchal rules on her intimacy. While Selma discovers the strength of her own desire, fundamentalism takes over her country and her family starts to crumble.

“Honey Cigar” is being produced by French veteran producer Christine Rouxel (“Houba! On the Trail of the Marsupilami”) and Marie-Castille Mention Schaar (“Heaven Will Wait”). The movie is being co-produced by the Dardennes and Malek Ali-Yahia, as well as French star Dany Boon.

Best Friend Forever will unveil the exclusive first footage of...

French actor Noémie Merlant plays a young woman who falls in love with a funfair ride in Zoé Wittock’s “Jumbo,” which is screening in Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Variety spoke to her about the film, and her debut feature as director “Mi Lubita.”

Merlant is viewed as one of the most promising actors of her generation. She was nominated for the Cesar’s Most Promising Actress award in 2017 for her role in “Le Ciel attendra,” and in 2019 was jointly nominated (with Adèle Haenel) as Best European Actress in the European Film Awards, for her role in Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

Merlant says that her role in “Jumbo” was a major challenge because she knew very little about the theme of objectum sexuality – the sexual attraction focused on inanimate objects – and had to research for the role, for example by watching Agnieszka Piotrowska...

Céline Sciamma’s Cannes Screenplay-winner “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” an 18th-century lesbian bodice-ripper that scored among the best reviews at the May festival, is a likely candidate for France’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar. That said, it will face stiff competition for France’s slot from two other Cannes prize-winners, Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” and Ladj Ly’s “Les Misérables.” In any case, Neon will release the film in Los Angeles and New York on December 6, at the height of the awards season.

The theatrical distributor did well at Cannes, beating out Netflix and others on the popular title, partnering with Hulu to acquire North American rights. Neon picked up the eventual Palme d’Or winner, Bong Joon-Ho’s “Parasite,” ahead of the festival; that film is dated October 11. Expect both films to play the fall film festival circuit.

Adèle Haenel (“The Unknown Girl”) and...

Céline Sciamma’s Cannes Screenplay-winner “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” an 18th-century lesbian bodice-ripper that scored among the best reviews at the May festival, is a likely candidate for France’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar. That said, it will face stiff competition for France’s slot from two other Cannes prize-winners, Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” and Ladj Ly’s “Les Misérables.” In any case, Neon will release the film in Los Angeles and New York on December 6, at the height of the awards season.

The theatrical distributor did well at Cannes, beating out Netflix and others on the popular title, partnering with Hulu to acquire North American rights. Neon picked up the eventual Palme d’Or winner, Bong Joon-Ho’s “Parasite,” ahead of the festival; that film is dated October 11. Expect both films to play the fall film festival circuit.

Adèle Haenel (“The Unknown Girl”) and...

Nigerian metropolis Lagos is the focus of the eighth City To City showcase at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) as top brass anoint two international Rising Stars.

Tiff’s latest line-up announcement also featured extra selections in Galas and Special Presentations, among them Walter Hill’s (Re)Assignment, Philippe Falardeau’s The Bleeder, David Leveaux’ The Exception (pictured), Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake and Terry George’s drama The Promise.

A vibrant crop of Contemporary World Cinema entries includes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius, Danis Tanović’s Death In Sarajevo, Marie Noëlle’s Marie Curie, The Courage Of Knowledge and Akin Omotoso’s Vaya.

Hirokazu Kore-eda brings After The Storm to the Masters showcase, alongside Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Once Again.

Rounding out the...

Nigerian capital Lagos is the focus of the eighth City To City showcase at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) as top brass anoint two international Rising Stars.

Tiff’s latest line-up announcement also featured extra selections in Galas and Special Presentations, among them Walter Hill’s (Re)Assignment, Philippe Falardeau’s The Bleeder, David Leveaux’ The Exception (pictured), Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake and Terry George’s drama The Promise.

A vibrant crop of Contemporary World Cinema entries includes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius, Danis Tanović’s Death In Sarajevo, Marie Noëlle’s Marie Curie, The Courage Of Knowledge and Akin Omotoso’s Vaya.

Hirokazu Kore-eda brings After The Storm to the Masters showcase, alongside Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Once Again.

Rounding out the...

This article was produced as part of the Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring journalists at the Locarno Film Festival, a collaboration between the Locarno Film Festival, IndieWire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the support of Film Comment and the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists. The following interview, conducted by a member of the Critics Academy, focuses on a participant in the affiliated Filmmakers Academy program at the festival.

European identity has been facing a crisis, and now the films are catching up to it. People are angrier than ever, whether they’re driven by the recent terrorist attacks in Belgium, France or Germany, by the socio-political uncertainty following the Brexit vote — and the sharp increase in racist attacks that came as a consequence of it — or even by the lingering and closely-felt effects of a mounting debt crisis. Films — acting, as they must, as a mirror of society — follow suit.

This article was produced as part of the Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring journalists at the Locarno Film Festival, a collaboration between the Locarno Film Festival, IndieWire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the support of Film Comment and the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists.

“In France, young people get hell from the government who tells them to stop dreaming, to be more grounded.” – Axelle Ropert

During the conference following the press screening of her third feature film, “The Apple of My Eye” — which was competing for the Golden Leopard at the 69th Locarno International Film Festival — Axelle Ropert said that she “absolutely” wanted to depict today’s European youth in her new film. That will come as a surprise to those who have followed Ropert’s work as a screenwriter, director and film critic known for her disinterest in films that deal with modern-day concerns.