Notizie

Already one of France’s most beloved and bankable actors (“The Stronghold”), Gilles Lellouche is about to graduate as a big-shot filmmaker five years after delivering his sophomore outing, “Sink or Swim,” a B.O. hit which lured more than four million moviegoers (over $35 million) in theaters.

His next movie, “Beating Hearts” (“L’amour Ouf”), budgeted in the €30 million range, is epic in many ways. And not just because of its breadth and running time exceeding three hours. A crime romance loosely based on Neville Thompson’s 1997 novel “Jackie Loves Johnser Ok,” the movie is an emotional rollercoaster spanning over 15 years in the lives of star-crossed lovers. It took Lellouche over a decade to write (alongside Audrey Diwan and Ahmed Hamidi) and four months to shoot with a cast mixing rising and famous actors, a pulsating soundtrack of cult 1980s and 1990s songs, topnotch key crew and dream-like musical interludes created by (La) Horde.

A pandemic hiccup might have slightly pushed back the production start date (we mentioned the project when it got a leg up via the the Arte France cinema folks) but it appears that Thierry de Peretti is indeed setting up shop for his fourth feature film – due to begin lensing this September. À son image will be filmed in Ajaccio (in Corsica), France and will likely still unfold in Bosnia. Peretti who has been at Cannes with his first and second features in Apaches (2013) and A Violent Life (2017) is working from a project that is based on Jérôme Ferrari’s novel of the same name.…...

Charades and WTFilms have teamed on “Vermin,” a horror movie set in the French projects with a cast of local up-and-coming actors, who star alongside real spiders.

The movie will mark the feature debut of Sébastien Vaniček, who previously directed critically acclaimed shorts such as “Mayday.” Harry Tordjman at My Box Films is producing.

“Vermin” stars Théo Christine (“Suprêmes”), Finnegan Oldfield (“Final Cut”), Jérôme Niel (“Smoking Causes Coughing”), Sofia Lesaffre (“Les Misérables”) and Lisa Nyarko.

The film is currently in shooting in Paris, with a March 3 end date. It will distributed in France by Tandem. France Télévisions pre-bought the movie and Netflix got the pay TV window in France.

“Vermin” is set in an underprivileged suburb that has been thrown into chaos following an invasion of venomous spiders. Ordered to be placed in quarantine, the project sees inhabitants living on lockdown alongside terrifying spiders that are becoming bigger and bigger.

Paris-based sales agent WTFilms, which specializes in genre movies, is presenting Romain Quirot’s sophomore feature film, “Apache: Gang of Paris,” at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris.

The pic is an ambitious revenge movie set in early 20th century Paris, when rival gangs were wreaking havoc. The term apache was coined in Paris at the time, to describe street gangs. “It’s a modern stylish and raw revenge movie,” says WTFilms’ Gregory Chambet. “We hope it will offer a renewal of the French action thriller genre, as Christophe Gans did with ‘Brotherhood of the Wolves’.”

Quirot’s freshman pic, cosmic road movie “The Last Journey,” starring Jean Reno, won Best Film at Sitges in 2020.

WTFilms’ slate also includes Quentin Dupieux’s “Incredible but True,” that follows on from his Venice-playing giant fly comedy, “Mandibles,” that starred French comedy duo Grégoire Ludig and David Marsais.

Starring Alain Chabat and Léa Drucker,...