Actualités

Exclusive:Lisa Azuelos is reteaming with star Sophie Marceau for Lol 2.0: Anne’s Golden Hour, the sequel to 2009 box-office hit Lol which starts production in Paris later this month.

Ginger & Fed has boarded the project and will begin international sales in Cannes.

The original Lol (Laughing Out Loud), about a mother’s rocky relationship with her teenage daughter, sold 3.7 million tickets in France and was adapted as a US remake starring Demi Moore and Miley Cyrus in 2012, also directed by Azuelos.

Marceau reprises her role for the sequel, playing the 55-year-old matriarch enjoying her newfound freedom and independence...

Juliette Binoche, Pedro Almodóvar and Mohammad Rasoulof have joined a campaign in support of persecuted Iranian filmmakers Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha.

The wife and husband directorial duo have been in the crosshairs of Iran’s authoritarian Islamic Republic regime since 2023 over their feature film My Favourite Cake, which world premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2024.

The heartwarming story of love and loss revolves around 70-year-old widow, played by Lily Farhadpour, who reconnects with life’s small pleasures in the face of solitude, following her husband’s death.

The Iranian authorities are unhappy with the film because it flies in the face of their sexist, draconian laws around what women should wear and how they should act, with the protagonist seen without a hijab head covering, sharing a drink with a suitor and dancing.

The Islamic Republic government slapped a travel ban on Moghadam and Sanaeeha, preventing any travel for the last two years,...

Melisa Godet’s social drama A Place For Her (La Maison des Femmes) will headline the Paris Rendez-Vous slate ofFederation’s international sales banner Ginger & Fed.

The film is based on La Maison des Femmes de Saint-Denis, a women’s shelter outside of Paris for survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Inspired by the centre’s founder Dr Ghada Hatem, A Place For Her stars Karin Viard as a fictional doctor and her team including a midwife, a young intern and a nurse as they navigate balancing their personal lives with their professional dedication to providing care.

The cast also includes Laetitia Dosch,...

This week brings A24’s latest horror film and Sony’s final Venom movie home, alongside the next nightmare from the French duo behind hits including Inside and The Deep House.

Here’s all the new horror released on Tuesday, December 10, 2024!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

Fresh off a Golden Globes nomination for Hugh Grant, A24’s new horror movie Heretic from directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods has made its debut on at-home Digital today.

You can rent the film for $19.99 or purchase it for $24.99.

Hugh Grant (D&d: Honor Among Thieves), Chloe East (The Fabelmans) and Sophie Thatcher (“Yellowjackets”) lead the cast of the upcoming horror movie. In the film…

“Two missionaries are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed, becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse.”

Meagan Navarro...

Oscar-winning indie studio Neon emerged as the big winner at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s 50th annual selections of the best films and performances, clinching top honors for two of its major contenders: the poignant dramedy “Anora” and the politically-charged thriller “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.”

“Anora” took home the best picture prize, following in the footsteps of past Lafca winners turned Oscar darlings such as “The Hurt Locker” (2009), “Moonlight” (2016) and “Parasite” (2019). It seems like smooth sailing to the Dolby Theatre (at least for a nomination) for the Sean Baker dramedy that won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Mohammad Rasoulof directed, co-wrote and produced “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” under immense political pressure, resulting in the filmmaker being forced to flee Iran after facing an eight-year prison sentence and demands from authorities to withdraw the film from its Cannes premiere. His win...

"If you hear the whispers in his forest, he's come to eat your soul." Dark Sky Films has revealed an official trailer for The Soul Eater, a new horror thriller film from the acclaimed French horror filmmakers Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo. This first premiered at the 2024 Rotterdam Film Festival earlier this year, with stops at other genre film festivals throughout 2024. From the two creators of Inside (2007), The Deep House, and Leatherface. When violent and gruesome deaths starts plaguing a small mountain village, an old legend about a malevolent creature resurfaces. Based on the French novel of the same name (Le Mangeur d’âmes) written by Alexis Laipsker. Who is "The Soul Eater" coming for next? The French horror film stars Emmanuel Lanzi, Malik Zidi, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire, and Virginie Ledoyen. This trailer is for the English dubbed version - which will be added to its release in the US this fall.

French sales outfit Ginger & Fed has boarded Fabien Gorgeart’s comedy drama What Is Love? (C’est Quoi l’Amour?) starring Laure Calamy and Vincent Macaigne as a long-divorced couple attempting to annul their Catholic marriage at the Vatican.

Ginger & Fed, the theatrical sales arm of French group Federation run by Sabine Chemaly, will kick off sales for the film at the American Film Market.

Lyes Salem, Melanie Thierry, Celeste Brunnquell and Saül Benchetrit round out the cast of the feature, which is shooting now and produced by Petit Film and Deuxième Lign.

Described by Chemaly as“a comedy...

Five years ago, French writer-director Claude Lelouch returned, for the second time, to the site of his greatest career success with “The Best Years of a Life,” an autumnal sequel to his trend-setting 1966 romance “A Man and a Woman” that felt elegiac in multiple senses — not least since it turned out to be the final onscreen appearance for both its stars, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée. Anyone who assumed it might be Lelouch’s sign-off, however, was quite mistaken. He’s made three features since, the latest of which, “Finally,” seems fashioned from its title down as a sort of career summation from the 86-year-old filmmaker, but not portentously so. A peculiar, weightless confection that bounces antically between narratives, perspectives, periods and varying grips on reality, it treats even grave mortal matters with near-cartoonish buoyancy.

Premiering out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, accompanying a career-achievement award presentation to Lelouch,...

French director Claude Lelouch first broke out internationally with 1966 romance A Man and a Woman, starring Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant as a widow and widower whose fledgling love story is held back by past personal tragedies.

Nearly 60 years later, the soundtrack by late composer Francis Lai – and in particular its title track, which is often referred to as ‘Chabadabada’ for its catchy refrain – remains as famous, if not more famous, than the Oscar and Cannes Palme d’Or-winning feature

That movie would mark the start of a 52-year, 35-picture collaboration between Lelouch and Lai, which was at the heart of a music-themed masterclass by Lelouch at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

The director is at the festival to receive the Cartier Glory To The Filmmaker Award as well as for the premiere of new work Finalement, starring an ensemble cast led by Kad Merad and also featuring Elsa Zylberstain,...

Dive into the conflicted and complex life of literary giant Samuel Beckett in Dance First (2024). Strong performances and poetic dialogue elevate the story, capturing Beckett's deep regrets. Not for everyone, this slow-paced drama delves into the depths of creativity, romance, and regret.

As it was announced Samuel Beckett had received the Nobel Prize for Literature, he sighed and quietly spoke, What a catastrophe, which acts as an apt metaphor for the conflicted life depicted in Dance First (2024) . From British director James Marsh, this unusual life story saw Gabriel Byrne portray the absurdist writer as he looked back on his experiences and reckoned with the lives destroyed in his wake. Along the way, we encounter the impact of his relationships with his mother, James Joyce, his wife, and mistress as a profound sense of regret pervades his probing internal monologues with himself.

Dance First (2024)

Director James MarshRelease Date August 9, 2024Writers Samuel Beckett,...

Audiences who love historical dramas, brilliant literature, or resilient actors like the great Gabriel Byrne will appreciate Dance First, a somewhat illuminating biopic on literary genius Samuel Beckett. The Irish novelist/dramatist brought to the stage classic works such as Endgame, Happy Days, and Waiting for Godot, which is generating buzz again with the upcoming Broadway production starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. The duo famously starred in the Bill & Ted films, and their unique pairing in Waiting for Godot will surely provoke thought at the least.

Thats the goal of Dance First as well. It's a curiously unusual work in that it reviews Becketts life through the lens of his more eye-opening mistakes. Rather than focus on the awards-bait power of his myriad achievements, director James Marsh (The Theory of Everything) and writer Neil Forsyth construct a film out of Becketts more treasured relationships and those he wronged,...

The acclaimed director James Marsh takes on the challenging task of bringing Samuel Beckett’s complex life to the screen in Dance First. Written by Neil Forsyth, the film stars Gabriel Byrne as the older Beckett, with Fionn O’Shea playing him in his younger days. It skips through key periods, relationships, and events in a largely linear chronology.

The story opens in 1969 at the Nobel Prize ceremony, from which Beckett hastily escapes. This prompts conversations with another Beckett where he reflects on those who caused him “shame”—his m mother, James Joyce’s daughter Lucia, and the two women in his life.

Through flashbacks we see Beckett’s difficult upbringing in Ireland, his arrival in Paris and work with Joyce, his involvement in the French Resistance, and his long relationships with his eventual wife Suzanne and translator Barbara Bray.

While providing glimpses into Beckett’s experiences, the film only touches on his groundbreaking works.

Iain Glen, Ser Jorah Mormont in Game Of Thrones, is feisty as ever as a family man facing down the tumultuous start of World War I in The Last Front by Belgian filmmaker Julien Hayet-Kerknawi, the first release by his new indie label Enigma. It opens on 250 screens.

Metrograph Pictures is out with Good One, its first title since expanding into theatrical releasing under the leadership of former A24 executive David Laub. The debut feature by India Donaldson has great reviews at 96% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and starts in limited release on three screens in New York and LA.

The theatrical market is pretty complicated right now and original independent films have fewer champions. These new indie distributors — and there are others — see a necessity and a business proposition in nurturing them.

“There is still very much an audience for these movies when they are really good,” Laub tells Deadline.

Director James Marsh has had great success telling the stories of extraordinary people. He won an Oscar for his documentary Man on Wire, about tightrope walker Philippe Petit, and his Stephen Hawking biopic, The Theory of Everything, which won several awards, including Oscars. So Dance First — a biography about the iconic author and playwright Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot), directed by Marsh and starring Garbiel Byrne (Hereditary) and Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones) — should be a slam dunk. Unfortunately, despite its attempts to break convention, Dance First feels far too safe to make much of an impact.

Dance First Review

Dance First tells the story of Irish writer Samuel Beckett and his incredible life, from his childhood to fighting in the French resistance during WWII to becoming one of the world’s most prolific writers and winning a Nobel Prize for literature. The story plays out pretty much as one would expect,...

“Dance First” is a new ‘bio-pic’ feature, directed by Oscar winner James Marsh, starring Gabriel Byrne (“The Keep”), Aidan Gillen, Maxine Peake, Fionn O’Shea and Sandrine Bonnaire, opening August 9, 2024 in limited theatrical screenings:

“…recognized literary genius ‘Samuel Beckett’ (Byrne) lived a life of many parts: Parisian bon vivant, ‘WWII’ Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband, recluse.

“But despite all the adulation that came his way, he was a man acutely aware of his own failings…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.” So goes the famous opening line to Samuel Beckett’s 1938 avant-garde novel Murphy. There’s nothing much new to be found in director James Marsh’s film about the legendary Irish writer either, which takes a fairly rote cradle-to-grave approach to the Nobel laureate’s life. The great shame is that there were alternatives here and, in its best moments, Dance First hints at them, flirting with a more adventurous approach that, well, might have yielded something new.

The film begins promisingly at the 1969 Nobel Prize ceremony, where Beckett (Gabriel Byrne) learns the devastating news that he’s won the prize for literature. “Catastrophe,” he grumbles to his wife, Suzanne Dumesnil (Sandrine Bonnaire), before climbing the steps up to the stage, and then up the walls of the theater itself before clambering into a strange, cave-like crevice. The surreal place...

French director Claude Lelouch will be celebrated with the Cartier Glory To The Filmmaker Award at the upcoming 81st Venice Film Festival, running from August 28 to September 7.

He follows in the footsteps of Wes Anderson who was last year’s recipient of the award, dedicated to a personality who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry.

The award ceremony will take place on September 2 ahead of the world premiere in an Out of Competition screening of Lelouch’s new work Finalement, starring an ensemble cast featuring Kad Merad, Elsa Zylberstain, Michel Boujenah, Sandrine Bonnaire, Barbara Pravi and Françoise Gillard.

One of France’s best loved directors, Lelouch first broke out internationally with his 1966 Oscar and Cannes Palme d’Or-winning romance A Man and a Woman, starring Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant as a widow and widower whose fledgling love story is held back by past personal tragedies.

French director Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman, Happy New Year, The Beautiful Story) will be honored at this year’s Venice Film Festival with the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award, a prize dedicated to a “personality who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry.”

Lelouch will receive the prize Monday, Sept. 2, at Venice’s Sala Grande ahead of the out-of-competition screening of his latest feature, Finalement, a musical fantasy starring Kad Merad (Welcome to the Sticks, The Chorus). Elsa Zylberstain, Michel Boujenah, Sandrine Bonnaire, Barbara Pravi and Françoise Gillard co-star. The film was produced by Les Films 13 in co-production with France 2 Cinéma and Laurent Dassault Rond-Point. Metropolitan Filmexport is handling international sales.

“Claude Lelouch is one of the top directors of French cinema, an excellent interpreter of its ‘quality,’ albeit alien to its main currents,” said Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera.

Stars: Virginie Ledoyen, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire, Francis Renaud | Written by Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre | Directed by Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury

[Note: With the film screening as part of this year’s Fantasia Film Festival, here’s a reposting of my review of The Soul Eater from its screening at Glasgow Frightfest earlier this year]

Two detectives with entirely different work methods are sent to the sleepy French mountain town of Roquenoir. One is investigating a series of gruesome deaths. The other is searching for some missing local children. Soon, they realise their cases are connected… by an old folklore legend of a malevolent creature, the terrifying incarnation of the Soul Eater.

The Soul Eater is a suspenseful tale of small-town horror, very much akin to similar films set in abandoned “ghost” towns. The kinds of towns synonymous with closely guarding its secrets and a weariness of outsiders. And here the audience is very much an outsider, learning what’s happening at the same time as the film’s two protagonists – Franck...

“Dance First” is a new ‘bio-pic’ feature, directed by Oscar winner James Marsh, starring Gabriel Byrne, Aidan Gillen, Maxine Peake, Fionn O’Shea and Sandrine Bonnaire, opening August 9, 2024 in limited theatrical screenings and August 16, 2024 on digital platforms:

“…recognized literary genius ‘Samuel Beckett’ (Byrne) lived a life of many parts: Parisian bon vivant, ‘WWII’ Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband, recluse.

“But despite all the adulation that came his way, he was a man acutely aware of his own failings…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

"Even in that horrible place, they couldn't turn off the stars..." Magnolia has revealed an official trailer for the film titled Dance First, an intriguing biopic about the life of literary genius Samuel Beckett. This premiered at the 2023 San Sebastian FIlm Festival last year, before then opening in the UK in November; Beckett was Irish so the UK got first dibs on this release. The film documents the Irish writer's life, from his childhood, his friendship with James Joyce until the incarceration of the latter's mentally ill daughter Lucia Joyce, his relationship with his future wife Suzanne Dumesnil, also as a fighter for the French Resistance during WWII, his postwar literary rise and subsequent Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, his affair with translator Barbara Bray and his later life until his death in 1989. Throughout the film, Beckett carries out an interior monologue. Irish actor Gabriel Byrne stars as Beckett, joined by Fionn O'Shea,...

The 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival descends on Montreal July 18 for 3 weeks of wild, and wondrous cinema. Included among the official selections in the 2024 program are some of the years most anticipated horror releases, hidden gems from around the world, and even free events with acclaimed filmmakers, including Mike Flanagan! This year’s program includes E.L. Katz’s action-packed dialog-free post-apocalyptic nightmare Azrael, as well as In Our Blood a found footage shocker from documentarian-turned-horror-maestro Pedro Kos, and Rita from Jayro Bustamante who’s 2019 sleeper hit La Llorona grabbed the indie horror scene by the throat.

Needless to say, there are hundreds of movies at Fantasia that we can’t wait to sink our teeth into (including something called Chainsaws Are Singing which the fest has described as “Monty Python meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Les Misérables!?!). Below are the 10 horror movies we’re most excited to see and review for...

Nobody really makes AIDS dramas anymore, which seems as good a reason as any to make one now. The disease that, forty-odd years ago, decimated a generation of queer people and prompted a prejudice-driven global panic hasn’t gone away — least of all in various developing countries, where it isn’t popularly defined by gender or sexuality, and death rates are still high. But its narrative has changed. For many, advances in antiretroviral and preventative drugs have stripped HIV of its aura of terror, making it something to be lived with, not a ticking clock to the end. With little posturing or overtly groundbreaking intent, French writer-director Gaël Morel unusually and sensitively bridges these eras of HIV/AIDS in his gentle romantic melodrama “To Live, To Die, To Live Again” — beginning in a distinctly Nineties register of mainstream queer cinema, before looking ahead to the 21st century.

Premiering in the...

The highly anticipated biopic ‘Slow Joe’ has announced an exciting collaboration between Bollywood veteran Jackie Shroff and acclaimed French actress and director Sandrine Bonnaire. The film, based on the remarkable life of Indian musician Joseph Manuel Da Rocha, is produced by Isabella Sreyashii Sen and Olivier Dock of Hazelnut Media.

Sandrine Bonnaire will bring her expertise to the helm, directing the film that she describes as “moving and extraordinary.” Jackie Shroff will portray the lead role of Joseph Manuel Da Rocha, a former heroin addict and drug dealer who transformed his life. The biopic will be a Singapore-France-India co-production, shot in English, French, and Konkani languages.

The story follows Da Rocha’s journey from Mumbai to Goa, where he overcame adversity and achieved his dreams. Both Shroff and Bonnaire are thrilled about the collaboration, with Shroff praising Bonnaire’s exceptional talent and vision. Bonnaire shares, “Joseph Manuel Da Rocha’s story is moving and extraordinary,...

French actress and director Sandrine Bonnaire is to direct music biopic Slow Joe.

Slow Joe tells the true story of the late Indian musician Joseph Manuel Da Rocha - “Slow Joe” - chronicling his journey from Goa to international acclaim in France, overcoming a troubled past through music.

Bonnaire joins the project with previously announced Indian actor Jackie Shroff, whose credits include Devdas and Rangeela, who will play Slow Joe, and Narcos director of photography Mauricio Vidal.

The English, French and Konkani language feature film will shoot in India and France in early 2025.

It is produced through Singapore-based film production and distribution company,...

Exclusive: Goodfellas has acquired international rights for French director Gaël Morel’s drama To Live, To Die, To Live Again set against the AIDS epidemic in the early 1990s, ahead of its world premiere in Cannes.

Rising French actors Victor Belmondo, Lou Lampros and Théo Christine co-star as a romantically entwined trio whose youthful dalliance takes them into life-changing territory with the arrival of AIDS. While they expect the worse, the destiny of each character will take an unexpected turn.

Morel has taken inspiration from his own teenage fears around AIDS in the 1990s as well as research he did for a planned documentary on people who caught the virus and were saved at the last minute by the development of effective antiretroviral therapies.

Michèle Halberstadt and Laurent Pétin produced the film under the banner of their Paris-based film company Arp Sélection, which will also distribute the feature in France.

Stars: Virginie Ledoyen, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire, Francis Renaud | Written by Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre | Directed by Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury

Two detectives with entirely different work methods are sent to the sleepy French mountain town of Roquenoir. One is investigating a series of gruesome deaths. The other is searching for some missing local children. Soon, they realise their cases are connected… by an old folklore legend of a malevolent creature, the terrifying incarnation of the Soul Eater.

The Soul Eater is a suspenseful tale of small-town horror, very much akin to similar films set in abandoned “ghost” towns. The kinds of towns synonymous with closely guarding its secrets and a weariness of outsiders. And here the audience is very much an outsider, learning what’s happening at the same time as the film’s two protagonists – Franck and Elizabeth – which the film is very much mystery-driven.

However, once the...

Magnolia Pictures has acquired Samuel Beckett biopic Dance First for North America, to be released later this year.

The San Sebastian premiere is helmed by The Theory of Everything filmmaker James Marsh, with London and Paris-based outfit Film Constellation representing sales on the title. Studiocanal released in the UK and Ireland last year.

Irish actor Gabriel Byrne plays the Irish literary great, with the film exploring the many parts of his life: Second World War resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, and recluse.

Aidan Gillen, Sandrine Bonnaire, Maxine Peake and Fionn O’Shea star.

Dance First was developed and packaged by 2Le Media,...

You don’t need to have lived in the proverbial middle of nowhere to understand the kind of terror Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s The Soul Eater mines from the fictional Roquenoix. As shot by Simon Roca, this remote hamlet in northeastern France isn’t a ghost town so much as a burial ground where humans and buildings alike are waiting to rot. A grandiose sanatorium once towered over the tree-shrouded hills, bringing in enough cash and tourists to fill the village’s coffers. But when a motorway was built across the valley, the tourists disappeared, the sanatorium was abandoned; and the few who stayed behind were left to wrestle with an ancestral legend and a series of murders that may or may not be connected with it.

The single most terrifying thing in The Soul Eater isn’t the titular devourer, but that spectral, lifeless town where its victims are stranded.

Ginger & Fed, the new international film sales arm of Federation Studios headed by former TF1 Studio boss Sabine Chemaly, will launch several high profile titles at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous, including “The Future Awaits,” Niels Tavernier’s WWII-set drama based on the true story of a Holocaust survivor. Ginger & Fed will also bow sales on “Riviera Revenge,” a heartwarming comedy starring André Dussollier (“The Crime is Mine”), Sabine Azéma (“Tanguy”) and Thierry Lhermitte (“The Dinner Game”), along with continuing deals on “Rachel’s Game,” “Survive” and “Oldies and Goodies.”

Produced by Yves Darondeau at Bonne Pioche Cinema (“March of the Penguins”), “The Future Awaits” tells the story of Tauba Birenbaum, whose testimony was collected in July 1997 to become part of Steven Spielberg’s Institute for Visual History. The film opens in July 1942, during the Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup of Jewish families in Paris. 13-year-old Tauba and her parents, who are Polish Jews,...

French filmmakers Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (Inside, Leatherface, The Deep House) are back with The Soul Eater, and we’ve got a new image for you today.

Check it out below, along with a better look at a previously released shot above.

The upcoming movie is an adaptation of the novel by Alexis Laipsker.

In The Soul Eater, “The chilling drama unfolds against the backdrop of a mountain village where an old legend about a malevolent creature resurfaces following the disappearance of local children and a series of violent and gruesome deaths.”

Virginie Ledoyen (Rabid Dogs, The Beach), Paul Hamy (Get In), and Sandrine Bonnaire star.

The directors reteam with Kandisha cinematographer Simon Roca for their latest.

The Soul Eater is produced by Phase 4 Productions and Place du Marché Productions and will receive a theatrical release in France. No word yet on a US release date. Stay tuned.

The phrase 'eat the rich' might be partly a joke, but it did originate in France, during the Reign Of Terror - it was pointed out by the leader a commune that, if the poor had nothing left to eat, they would eat those who left them in their poverty. As the phrase, and the recognition of what capitalism and the class system have done to our world, it's perhaps fitting to have a new edition of Claude Chabrol's The Ceremony (La Cérémonie) for our enjoyment and edification. The 1997 film, based on the novel by UK author Ruth Rendell, which itself draws from a true story, tells of Sophie Bonhomme (Sandrine Bonnaire), a young woman who finds employment as a housekepper for the well-off...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Vivid portrait of the great playwright of inertia points up the contrast with his real-life romantic entanglements and daring work for the French resistance

Director James Marsh has boldly, maybe even sacrilegiously, given us a Hollywoodised biopic of Samuel Beckett. It starts with Beckett surreally escaping the Nobel ceremony to talk in private with a doppelganger confessor – a breezier, more worldly self in a rollneck sweater and jacket – and glumly wondering to whom in his life he should penitentially give the prize money, a guilt list which ushers in the flashbacks.

It isn’t hard to imagine what the man himself would have said about this movie, but though a little hammy, it is well acted and tells the story with verve, tackling the paradox of Beckett’s bleak fictional universe of stymied inaction and his dramatic real life of service in the French resistance and romantic intrigue. There’s a very thoughtful,...

Earlier this year, it was announced that the last horror film from the filmmaking duo of Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo would be an adaptation of the Alexis Laipsker novel The Soul Eater (a.k.a. Le mangeur d’âmes), with Virginie Ledoyen (The Beach), Paul Hamy (The Ornithologist), and Sandrine Bonnaire (Women at War) taking on the lead roles. Now Deadline reports that WTFilms will be presenting The Soul Eater, which is currently in post-production, to potential buyers at the upcoming American Film Market. That presentation will include a screening of an early promo of the film. Along with that report comes the unveiling of a creepy first look image, which can be seen at the bottom of this article.

The Soul Eater has the following synopsis: “He didn’t scream. They never scream.” Some well-kept secrets sometimes turn out to be too heavy to bear… When the disappearance...

Up next from French filmmaking duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, best known for their ultra-violent slasher Inside and aquatic haunted house tale The Deep House, is an adaptation of grisly thriller The Soul Eater by Alexis Laipsker. Thanks to Deadline, a new image teases the eerie horror feature.

Maury announced production on the film earlier this year via Instagram, the seventh feature film for Maury and Bustillo.

In The Soul Eater, “The chilling drama unfolds against the backdrop of a mountain village where an old legend about a malevolent creature resurfaces following the disappearance of local children and a series of violent and gruesome deaths.”

The directors reteam with Kandisha cinematographer Simon Roca for their latest.

Virginie Ledoyen (Rabid Dogs, The Beach), Paul Hamy (Get In), and Sandrine Bonnaire star.

The novel’s official synopsis also indicates another bloody genre film for the filmmakers:

“‘He didn’t scream. They never scream.

Exclusive: Paris-based genre special WTFilms has boarded Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury’s horror thriller ‘The Soul Eater’ ahead of the AFM.

The chilling drama unfolds against the backdrop of a mountain village where an old legend about a malevolent creature resurfaces following the disappearance of local children and a series of violent and gruesome deaths.

Virginie Ledoyen (Just the Two of Us) and Paul Hamy (The Last Journey) co-star as two police detectives with very different methods who are sent to investigate the crimes. Sandrine Bonnaire (Happening) joins them in the cast.

The production is adapted from French writer Alexis Laipsker’s bestseller of the same name. WTFilms will screen a first promo for the French-language film which is in post-production.

Directorial duo Bustillo and Maury gained fans in the U.S. for their 2021 English-language supernatural horror The Deep House, which was acquired by Blumhouse Television and Epix for North America,...

The Oscars are still five months away, but there’s one winner prediction that you can take to the bank. The category of Best Costume Design will be won by a period drama or a fantasy film. In the past 45 years, only one contemporary-set movie has scored the costume prize, with only about one contemporary nominee per decade.

While dressing up monarchs and showgirls and superheroes is a craft that deserves praise, the period/fantasy monopoly also highlights work outside of that mold. And there’s no better recent example of imagination in modern dress than “Passages,” the great drama from director Ira Sachs (“Love Is Strange”), elevated with idiosyncratic, seductive costumes design by Khadija Zeggaï.

Set among the bourgeoisie in modern day Paris, “Passages” focuses on German filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski), who is married to artist Martin (Ben Whishaw) but falls in love with schoolteacher Agathe (Adele Excharpoulous).

The film,...

In a genre not traditionally given to brevity, James Marsh’s literary biopic “Dance First” at least has that on its side: In 100 minutes, it races through the key events and alliances in the life of Irish author and dramatist Samuel Beckett, even finding time for some metaphysical musings alongside the cradle-to-grave checklist. But Beckett’s characteristic terseness — or radical “lessness,” to borrow a title from one of his stories — isn’t a feature of this creditable but ponderous film, which ultimately achieves its efficient runtime by skirting any meaningful engagement with Beckett’s work and literary legacy. What’s left is an anatomy of his unhappiness via a procession of stymied or soured relationships: shot with grace, acted with intelligence, but short on Beckettian daring or wit.

It’s another biopic from Marsh, following 2014’s popular “The Theory of Everything” and 2017’s less-seen “The Mercy,” that resists bringing his...

Fionn O'Shea, Gabriel Byrne and James Marsh at the press conference Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival/Jorge Fuembuena The life of Samuel Beckett, although very little of the work, is explored in James Marsh’s Dance First, written by Neil Forsyth. The film, which is the closing night selection at San Sebastian Film Festival dips into the Waiting For Godot author’s life from childhood to death, featuring key performances from Gabriel Byrne and Fionn O’Shea as the author, alongside Sandrine Bonnaire and Léonie Lojkine as his wife Suzanne, with support from the likes of Aidan Gillen and Maxine Peake.

Speaking at the press conference in San Sebastian Gabriel Byrne said that “talking to himself” as the writer interrogates a second version of himself of the film was quite tricky.#

“Technically, it was difficult," he explains, “because usually when you're doing drama, you're talking to somebody else...

”I adore his cinema,” said festival director José Luis Rebordinos of Hayao Miyazaki. ”He is in my list of all-time favourite directors.”

The 71st edition of the San Sebastián Film Festival opened September 22 with the Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s latest feature: The Boy And The Heron. The film screened in the official section out of competition at the Spanish festival, which has registered a 10% increase in industry professionals in its growing market activities.

At the ceremony, conducted mainly in Spanish and Basque, festival director José Luis Rebordinos paid homage to Miyazaki, recipient of one of the two Donostia...

European pay TV platform Sky has released the trailer for Sky Original film “Dance First,” ahead of its world premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival on Sept. 30. Film Constellation is handling international sales on the film.

The film is directed by BAFTA and Academy Award winner James Marsh (“The Theory of Everything”) and written by BAFTA winner Neil Forsyth (“Guilt”). “Dance First” will be released in movie theaters in the U.K. and Ireland in November, on Sky Cinema in those countries in December and on Sky Arts and Freeview next year.

In “Dance First,” Golden Globe winner Gabriel Byrne (“The Usual Suspects”) plays Samuel Beckett with young Beckett played by Fionn O’Shea (“Normal People”) in a sweeping account of the life of this 20th century literary icon. Parisian bon vivant, World War II resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse, Beckett lived a life of many parts.

The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its lineup for the Industry Selects program of films beyond the official fest lineup and available for worldwide acquisition as each gets an in-person screening for film buyers and industry execs.

Leading the selection is director James Marsh’s Dance First, a biopic with Gabriel Byrne playing the literary giant Samuel Beckett and Sandrine Bonnaire, Maxine Peake, Aidan Gillen and Fionn O’Shea also starring; and director Neil Burger’s Inheritance, a thriller that has a woman played by Phoebe Dynevor learning her father Sam (Rhys Ifans) was once a spy, which puts her at the center of an international conspiracy.

Also picked for market screenings in Toronto is Jimmy Warden’s Borderline, set in 1996 Los Angeles and starring Eric Dane, Ray Nicholson and Samara Weaving as a pop star taken hostage; The Home, a horror pic from Purge series creator James DeMonaco, and starring...

Fest also announces Connections, Microsessions, and Spotlight sessions.

TIFF has announced the Industry Selects acquisition titles available to buyers during the festival, a 12-strong roster featuring new work from James Marsh, Rebecca Snow, and Neil Burger.

Gabriel Byrne plays literary giant Samuel Beckett in Marsh’s Dance First alongside Sandrine Bonnaire, Maxine Peake, Aidan Gillen, and Fionn O’Shea. Film Constellation represents worldwide rights and the film will close San Sebastian.

Phoebe Dynevor stars with Rhys Ifans for Burger in Inheritance, a thriller about a woman who uncovers her father’s espionage past. CAA Media Finance handles sales.

Snow (Cheating Hitler:...

Dance First, a biographical drama from The Theory of Everything director James Marsh about the life of Irish Nobel prize-winning playwright Samuel Beckett, will close the 71st San Sebastian Festival.

The feature, which stars Gabriel Byrne as Beckett alongside Sandrine Bonnaire as his longtime partner, and eventual wife, Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil, will close the 2023 San Sebastian festival on Sept. 30. Dance First will screen out of competition at San Sebastian.

Dance First follows Beckett’s life from his time as a fighter for the French Resistance during the Second World War, through his friendship with fellow Irish literary luminary James Joyce, his rise with such groundbreaking plays as Waiting for Godot, Endgame and Happy Days — which established the Theater of the Absurd movement — to his receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, and his later life as a recluse. Written by Neil Forsyth, the film also features Aidan Gillen as James Joyce...

UK director James Marsh’s literary biopic Dance First, starring Gabriel Byrne as iconic Irish writer Samuel Beckett, will close the 71st San Sebastian Film Festival.

The film is sold by London and Paris-based Film Constellation.

As per its synopsis, the biopic touches on various phases in Beckett’s life from “Parisian bon vivant, to World War II Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse.”

Its focus, however, is on Beckett’s reaction to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, which was a turning point in his life as he grappled with his own inner demons.

Byrne is joined in the cast by French actress Sandrine Bonnaire as Beckett’s wife.

Marsh has a long relationship with San Sebastian.

His Academy Award-winning documentary for Man on Wire (2009), directed with Simon Chinn, played at the festival in 2008.

Prior to that his early work Wisconsin Death Trip screened in...

“Dance First,” a portrait of Irish writer Samuel Beckett starring Gabriel Byrne and directed by Oscar winner James Marsh, will close this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, playing out of competition.

The closing film screening, on Sept. 30, will mark the film’s world premiere.

Byrne, a memorable lead in “The Usual Suspects” and “Miller’s Crossing” who also won a Golden Globe for his performance in “In Treatment,” plays Beckett. The Nobel Prize-winning playwright was a Parisian bon vivant and WWII resistance fighter who became a recluse, living the last years of his life in a single room in a nursing home, ashamed of past actions and convinced that for much of his life he had been a failure.

U.K. director Marsh won an Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2009 with “Man on Wire.” He also directed the Stephen Hawking biopic “The Theory of Everything,” which earned five nominations at the 2015 Oscars,...

Let’s quickly skirt the sinking-stomach realization of how far into 2023 we’re getting––at least this next crop of titles arrive as Barnes and Noble hold another 50%-off sale. If I’m suggesting consumerism smother self-inspection, this of all line-ups might at least make room for compromise: November will bring 4K upgrades for Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven––among the, let’s guess, seven or eight greatest-looking films ever––and Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, as well as an altogether new appearance for Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets. Last Picture Show is especially notable: it’ll include the lesser-seen sequel Texasville “presented in both the original theatrical version and a black-and-white version of Peter Bogdanovich’s director’s cut, produced in collaboration with cinematographer Nicholas von Sternberg.”

Almost equal to any of those films, arriving on a new Blu-ray, is Claude Chabrol’s La Cérémonie with Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert.

Claude Lelouch, the Oscar-winning director of “A Man and a Woman,” is getting ready to direct “Finalement…,” his next film which he says will be a sort of sequel to his BAFTA-nominated film “Happy New Year” and “L’aventure, l’aventure.” The lighthearted movie will reteam Lelouch with Metropolitan FilmExport which is co-producing with Lelouch’s banner Les Films 13, and will distribute in France.

Scored by popular French singer Ibrahim Maalouf, “Finalement…” will boast a large ensemble cast of French stars, including Kad Merad (“Baron Noir”), Elsa Zylberstein (“Simone”), Sandrine Bonnaire, Raphael Mezrahi, Michel Boujenah and Barbara Pravi.

Merad will play a powerful lawyer who sees his life take an unexpected turn after a health issue removes his ability to lie and forces him to speak without any filter. Merad’s character embarks on a road trip across France, from Paris to the Normandie, to the Mont St Michel, Avignon...

Studiocanal has signed a deal with Metropolitan Filmexport for worldwide rights to the entire film catalog of acclaimed French director Claude Lelouch.

The deal, announced at the Cannes Film Market on Saturday, includes more than 40 films, among them such French classics as A Man and a Woman (1966) — winner of the 1966 Palme d’Or, as well as two Oscars, for best international film and best original screenplay — Live for Life (1967), Love Is a Funny Thing (1969), The Crook (1970), Money Money Money (1972), Happy New Year (1973), Bolero (1981), Itinerary of a Spoilt Child (1988) and Les Misérables (1995).

Studiocanal has been handling French TV rights for the Lelouch catalog for the past seven years. The new deal will give the group exclusive worldwide distribution rights to the director’s vast catalog, as well as SVOD, free-on-demand and AVOD rights in France. Metropolitan will continue to distribute Lelouch’s films in theaters, on video and through transactional video-on-demand (Tvod) in France.

An Oscar winner for his documentary Man on Wire and the filmmaker behind 2014’s awards juggernaut The Theory of Everything, James Marsh has been away from the big screen for a few years (his last project was the 2018 heist film King of Thieves). But he comes to Cannes with two buzzy projects in the market. In Night Boat to Tangier, he takes on Kevin Barry’s New York Times best-seller with a cast including Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Negga.

That film hasn’t shot yet, but Marsh has already completed a rather different feature, Dance First. A sweeping account of the life of literary icon Samuel Beckett (the title is taken from his ethos, “Dance first, think later”), the film sees Gabriel Byrne as the Nobel Prize winner in a story that covers the many aspects of his younger years: from Parisian bon vivant to WWII resistance fighter and philandering husband.