Noticias

Paris-based Indie Sales has acquired international sales rights to “Peak Everything,” a romantic comedy directed by Canadian helmer Anne Émond, in the run-up to its world premiere at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

“Peak Everything” stars Patrick Hivon (“A Brother’s Love”) and Piper Perabo (“Yellowstone). Hivon plays Adam, a kind-hearted kennel-owner who is hypersensitive and borderline depressed. To help combat his eco-anxiety, Adam orders a therapeutic solar lamp, which leads him to meet Tina, a radiant woman with a voice that soothes all of his worries.

“Peak Everything” hails from Sylvain Corbeil at Metafilms, the powerhouse Canadian production company behind Matthew Rankin’s “Universal Language” which won the inaugural Director’s Fortnight prize in 2024, as well as the works of Xavier Dolan, most notably the Cannes Jury Prize winner “Mommy,” Monia Chokri’s “The Nature of Love,” and Charlotte Le Bon’s “Falcon Lake.”

The cast is completed by Connor Jessup (“Locke & Key”), Gilles Renaud,...

Marking his second decade as a film producer, I had the opportunity to sit down with Montreal-based Sylvain Corbeil at the 2024 Marrakech International Film Festival to discuss his latest collaboration with the uniquely talented Matthew Rankin. Rankin’s sophomore feature, Universal Language (set for release this Friday by Oscilloscope Laboratories), has been making waves on the festival circuit since its premiere last May in Cannes. Chosen as Canada’s Oscar submission and a standout in the Directors’ Fortnight, the film transcends borders, weaving Canadiana into a reimagined vision of community.

Corbeil is a seasoned producer with that magic touch, under the Metafilms moniker he has championed projects from acclaimed filmmakers such as Denis Côté, Xavier Dolan, Maxime Giroux, and Anne Émond, and more recently Cannes hits such as Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake (2022) and Monia Chokri’s Simple comme Sylvain (2023).…...

Most people will know Charlotte Le Bon as an actress who's appeared in films like Fresh, The Walk, and Anthropoid. It's likely that those people who could pick her out of a cast don't know that she's also a certified director, as she's made a coming-of-age film that stands out from the rest by adopting the stylistic conventions of a totally unrelated genre. With her film Falcon Lake, Le Bon takes a conventional summer vacation narrative and makes it her own by filtering it through the sensibilities of a classic ghost story. In doing so, she creates an experience that isn't filled with scares so much as it's filled with the trepidations of impending adulthood.

Canada’s Oscar entry “Universal Language,” a critically acclaimed movie directed by Matthew Rankin, has been acquired by distributors in most major territories ahead of its North American premieres at Toronto and New York Film Festival.

Represented worldwide by Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever, the movie world premiered at this Cannes Directors’ Fortnight where it won the inaugural People’s Choice Award. Following Toronto and New York, the movie will go on to play at Fantastic Fest and Festival du Nouveau Cinema as the festival opener. “Universal Language” also won the Bright Horizons Best Film Award at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

“Universal Language” has been bought for France (Météore Films), Scandinavia (Njutafilms), Germany & Austria (Rapid Eye Movies), Switzerland (Outside The Box), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Cei (Universal Distribution), Japan (The Klockworx), China (DDDream), Taiwan (Hooray Films), Brazil (Belas Artes Grupo), Indonesia (Falcon Pictures) and India (Big Tree Entertainment). Benelux,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Am I Ok? (Stephanie Allyne and Tig Notaro)

A romantic comedy that functions best as a fable of friendship and self-reflection, Am I Ok? is the kind of lightweight, amiable movie that just barely earns the emotional beats at the heart of its story. Set in Los Angeles, it follows the converging life events of two best friends, Lucy (Dakota Johnson) and Jane (Sonoya Mizuno), soul sisters with opposite personalities who tell each other everything—except for the big secrets they’ve been harboring from each other. How they respond to hearing them fuels Stephanie Allyne and Tig Notaro’s gentle and wobbly feature debut. – Jake K-s. (full review)

Where to Stream: Max

Dad & Step-Dad (Tynan DeLong)

Following the stellar comedy Free Time,...

Canadian director Matthew Rankin’s Persian and French-language drama Universal Language has won the inaugural Audience Award of Directors’ Fortnight.

This is the first official prize launched by Directors’ Fortnight which does not have a jury. The €7,500 cash award, is also the first audience award to be launched in Cannes, across the Official Selection and the parallel sections.

It is being sponsored by the Chantal Akerman Foundation, which preserves the legacy of the director who retained strong ties with Directors’ Fortnight throughout her career, after screening breakthrough film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce – 1080 Brussel in the section in 1975.

Described as taking place “somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg”, Universal Language intertwines multiple characters.

Gradeschoolers Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to claim it, while Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists through the monuments and historic sites of Winnipeg and Matthew quits...

Exclusive: Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever (Bff) has acquired international sales rights for Canadian director Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language.

The intriguing Persian and French-language drama is among 21 feature films announced as being selected for the 2024 edition of Cannes parallel section Directors’ Fortnight on Tuesday.

In a first key distribution deal for the movie, Oscilloscope Laboratories have taken U.S. rights. Quebecois distributor Maison4Tiers will release in Canada.

Universal Language is Rankin’s second feature after The Twentieth Century, on which Bff also handled international sales. The surrealist dark comedy won the Berlinale Fipresci Award in 2020 and Best Canadian debut award in TIFF Midnight Madness 2019.

Rankin has also made multiple short films including The Tesla World Light, which premiered in Cannes Critic’s Week 2017.

Going under the Persian title of Avaz boughalamoune (Lovesong for a Turkey), Rankin’s new film Universal Language is described as taking place “somewhere between...

Look who else is checking into The White Lotus: Charlotte Le Bon is joining the HBO anthology’s third season, replacing Francesca Corney. Sources told Deadline — which reported the recasting on Friday — that White Lotus producers swapped Corney for Le Bon because they wanted someone who appeared older in the role, the details of which are still under wraps. Le Bon is known for her roles in the films The Hundred-Foot Journey, The Walk, and The Promise. She also co-wrote and directed the 2022 coming-of-age film Falcon Lake. Corney, who’s vacating the White Lotus part, guest-starred in Mrs Sidhu Investigates and recurred in The Buccaneers last year. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Francesca Corney (@franicorn) This is the second known recasting for The White Lotus Season 3. Miloš Biković (South Wind) was dropped from the production in February after his ties to Russia came under criticism.

The White Lotus season 3 has another casting update!

The Emmy-winning HBO series is currently filming its third run in Thailand. The new cast features Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan, Walton Goggins, Patrick Schwarzenegger, and so many more!

On Friday (March 15), it was announced that Charlotte Le Bon was joining the cast in place of Francesca Corney.

Keep reading to find out more…

According to Deadline, the show’s producers were searching for an actor who played older.

Details about the character have not been made public.

Charlotte, 37, is best known for her roles in the 2022 Hulu film Fresh and the 2016 movie The Promise. She also directed 2022′s Falcon Lake.

In February, it was confirmed that Julian Kostov was replacing Miloš Biković in The White Lotus season 3.

If you haven’t seen, Jennifer Coolidge addressed her future on The White Lotus, and teased the upcoming third season!

Exclusive: Charlotte Le Bon (Falcon Lake) has joined Season 3 of HBO’s The White Lotus in a role that is being recast. She is replacing Francesca Corney, who had been originally tapped for the part, sources close to production tell Deadline. HBO would not comment but we hear that the producers felt they needed someone who played older. Details regarding the character are being kept under wraps.

This is the second recasting on White Lotus‘ upcoming third season. Previously, HBO parted ways with Serbian actor Miloš Biković who had voiced support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bulgarian Julian Kostov was cast as his replacement, as Deadline reported exclusively.

Season 3 of Mike White’s hit anthology series is currently in production in various parts of Thailand including Bangkok and the island of Koh Samui and Phuket. Not many details are available regarding the new chapter’s plot beyond that it follows...

Pulsar Content has closed major deals on “Niki,” a biopic of French-American artist Niki de Saint-Phalle.

“Niki” marks the feature debut of popular French actor Céline Sallette and stars Charlotte Le Bon (“The Walk” “Saint-Laurent”) as de Saint-Phalle. Pulsar closed deals with Neue Visionen (Germany), Movies Inspired (Italy), Paradiso (Benelux), Praessens (Switzerland), Vercine (Spain), Magic Films (Cis), Best Films (Baltics), Shaw (Singapour), Sky Digi (Taiwan) and Immovision (Brazil).

The movie portrays Saint-Phalle from the age of 23, when she’s still a model and an aspiring actor who is married and has a two-year-old daughter, Laura. Together, they flee the U.S. during the oppressive McCarthy era and come to France, where they experience a short-lived euphoria. Soon, distant and frightening memories begin to emerge in Niki’s mind. Her vocation as an artist will be her salvation.

Le Bon is an actor-turned-director whose feature debut “Falcon Lake” bowed at Cannes.

I tried making a conscious effort to find posters in areas I might not have normally visited this year. That’s the effect of having been able to follow so many design firms and artists on Twitter before a majority (justifiably) bailed upon its sale. With such broad and instant access, the ease at which I discovered new releases made it so I often forget to look elsewhere.

Imp Awards is still a great resource, if only to sift through everything they’ve tagged as a given year to see if something got missed. Then there’s Brandon Schaefer‘s year-end collections and Adrian Curry’s extensive Mubi posts and Instagram to get an inside look from two poster artists and connoisseurs. And there’s a slew of other accounts who keep on the pulse of the art form when so many (e.g. studios who commission the work) can...

It’s been a robust year for genre film. Horror’s continued dominance at the box office has effectively spilled over into fantasy, thrillers, and sci-fi in ways that defy easy classification. So much so that it’s difficult to overlook the 2023 genre movies that employ horror techniques, draw inspiration from our favorite genre, or simply dabble in it.

These horror adjacent movies may not fully plunge into the genre, but they’re also not afraid to wear their horror influences on their sleeves, whether through style or bloodletting.

Here are the top ten best horror adjacent movies of 2023.

10. A Haunting in Venice

Director and star Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot gets reeled into another whodunnit, but this time Branagh leans into the Halloween setting with stunning style to infuse this murder mystery with atmospheric mood. A Haunting in Venice looks and feels like a vintage ghost story, complete with nods to Edgar Allan Poe.

Stéphane Lafleur‘s masterwork Viking (a 2022 Toronto Intl. Film Festival selection) cleaned up in multiple categories including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Male Lead. The recently relaunched award ceremony known as Les Iris took place on Sunday. Best First Feature went to Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake, while Pascal Plante’s Les chambres rouges landed two acting prizes for its starlets. Here are all the winners (category listing in french):

Meilleur Film

Viking | micro_scope — Luc Déry, Kim McCraw Réalisation — Stéphane Lafleur

Scénario — Stéphane Lafleur, Eric K. Boulianne

Meilleur Premier Film Falcon Lake | Charlotte Le Bon

Meilleure RÉALISATION Stéphane Lafleur | Viking

Meilleur SCÉNARIO: Stéphane Lafleur, Eric K.…...

A vampire with qualms about killing to survive is no longer a figure exclusive to the “Twilight” franchise, when a Canadian French-language debut places a teenage girl in a tricky situation, torn between what the world demands of her and what she herself wants. The film’s title is eloquent enough — “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” — and it already won Ariane Louis-Seize the best director prize at this year’s Venice Days, and was praised for a “strong directorial vision.” The film screened as part of the main competition at the Thessaloniki Film Festival last week.

“Humanist Vampire” is a contemporary gothic tale, a coming-of-age story, and a comedy-drama all at the same time. It stars Sara Montpetit of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight entry “Falcon Lake” as the fanged protagonist, Sasha, and Félix-Antoine Bénard as the consenting suicidal person, Paul. Louis-Seize co-wrote the script together with Christine Doyon and the...

Last year the Contemporary World Cinema had plenty of Cannes Film Festival gems in Aftersun, Falcon Lake, R.M.N. and The Worst Ones. This year’s programme no longer called Cwc but could be called Cannes replay but the programmers want us to call it the Centrepiece programme. We have the masterful (Cannes Best Actress-winning) About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan plus Croisette light touches in the feel-good films of Fallen Leaves, Perfect Days and Monia Chokri ‘s Simple Comme Sylvain. From Venice we find Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir’s City of Wind, Ariane Louis-Seize’s Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist.…...

Canada-based movie distributor and aggregator H264 is launching a world sales arm with the acquisition of “Red Rooms,” which has its world premiere next week in the Crystal Globe Competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The company is focused on festival-driven, innovative films.

“Red Rooms,” directed by Quebec filmmaker Pascal Plante, is a cyber-thriller questioning the collective fascination with murderers. It will screen at Karlovy Vary on July 4, and will then open the Fantasia Film Festival on July 20 for its North American premiere.

Montréal-based H264 is also ramping up its international slate by adding “Mademoiselle Kenopsia,” from filmmaker Denis Côté, who won awards at Berlin with “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear” and Locarno with “Curling.”

The company is also representing the dark comedy “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person,” directed by Ariane Louis-Seize, starring Sara Montpetit (“Falcon Lake”) and Steve Laplante.

Jean-Christophe J. Lamontagne, founder and president of H...

Director Charlotte Le Bon’s new film Falcon Lake was inspired by the graphic novel Une sœur (A sister) by Bastien Vivès. Le Bon uses the landscapes she became familiar with in her childhood, the regions of the Laurentides, northwest of Montreal, as the story’s new setting and the result is a rewarding coming-of-age film where latent desires gradually meet. This deeply nuanced film, which recently premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, uses a teenage crush as its baseline, foregoing the shocking fright nights that typically populate a cabin-by-the-lake tale.

That said, the moment you lay your eyes on that cabin, your mind is already expecting the worst. What a fright it is. It’s worn down. There’s no electricity. Who would stay there for a getaway? But 13-year-old Bastien (Joseph Engel) and his French-speaking family must call it home for a spell.

It’s here where Bastien meets...

The new movie, Falcon Lake, helmed by the French-Canadian actress and debutant director Charlotte Le Bon, is an aching yet tender portrayal of young love. Having a fresh vision for an eerie and haunting story, the narrative is sure to leave you with a number of emotions which might take some time to be deciphered and processed. The story begins with the arrival of 13-year-old Sebastien and his family at a lodge near a lake for their holiday trip. The hosts are a decent couple who are parents to 16-year-old Chloe. Sebastien develops a crush on her, and she too indulges him, but her obsession with ghosts and interactions with elder boys have a turbulent effect on young Sebastien.

Spoilers Ahead

Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘Falcon Lake’?

Before Sebastien and his family arrive, Chloe’s unusual habit of pretending to have drowned in the nearby lake catches us off guard.

Another small blurb in the Le film français provides us with an update on what is in the works for Monia Chokri. She might be crossing the Atlantic for fourth feature outing — for what is linked “around a phenomenon that is happening right now.” This could be anything really – social or cultural movements, the human condition or more interplays between the sexes, but the other concrete info is that La Femme de mon frère (and Falcon Lake) collaborator writer François Choquet will assist here. We expect this to be a France-Canada co-production and at the earliest, not ready until 2025 if this is indeed the next project.…...

Selected for the Directors’ Fortnight in 2022, Charlotte Le Bon‘s assured directorial debut was among the highlights of the section and since its launch on the Croisette, Falcon Lake has played well on the festival circuit (with Deauville and TIFF), and among the collection of prizes it landed the prestigious Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film (beating out Alice Diop’s Saint Omer which oddly won for Best Feature ex aequo with Pacifiction).

Working as both as a moody parable and troubling portrait on youth, while we do indeed find some ghostly elements injected here, Falcon Lake is more about hard to describe violence that is associated to first loves and not being personally equipped to deal with rejection.…...

The eerily contemplative opening frames of “Falcon Lake” depict an idyllic lake on a summer night, a scene so calmly off-putting that you just know something has to be amiss. The shot remains unchanged for so long that when a body finally rises out of the water, it feels more like an inevitable moment of catharsis than a jump scare. That ominous serenity continues throughout “Falcon Lake,” yet the first truly startling moment in Charlotte Le Bon’s directorial debut is the sight of a Nintendo Switch.

Thanks to Le Bon’s dreamlike pacing and Kristof Brandl’s grainy cinematography, the film’s opening scenes of a nuclear family heading out for a lake house vacation come across as a long-buried memory unfolding before our eyes. The establishing shots would seamlessly fit into an ABC-era “Twin Peaks” episode, and the fashion could be ripped straight from a mid-90s Vineyard Vines catalog.

A coming-of-age romance with some ghostly undertones and an eerie ending, Falcon Lake is a dynamic movie filled with quiet moments that linger on the viewer's subconscious. The feature debut of Charlotte Le Bon, Falcon Lake feels like if Call Me By Your Name was directed by Catherine Breillat. It's a captivating tale of first love, with hidden secrets that aren't revealed until the very end. The scenery at the lake house where most of the film takes place is exquisite, creating an unmistakable atmosphere that helps add to the provocative nature of this film.

Le Bon both wrote the script for Falcon Lake alongside François Choquet and directed the film, which follows a 14-year-old Bastien (Joseph Engel) as he and his family travel to a lake house in Quebec for the summer. There, he meets 16-year-old Chloé (Sara Montpetit), who is also staying at the lake house with her family.

Every cinematic cabin in the woods suggests a place out of time. If you believe the movies, they’re either a) a dread-inducing home to all manner of spirits and masked killers which directly tie the cabin back to its haunted past; or b) an idyllic getaway for a teenager during a formative coming-of-age experience. The directorial debut of Canadian actress Charlotte Le Bon is an unusual, immediately arresting combination, grounding its deeply sincere account of first love within the realm of gothic horror––here the urban myth of a girl who drowned in the nearby lake many summers prior.

This is a tale with which Chloé (Sara Montpetit) is obsessed. Throughout the course of Falcon Lake we see Chloe elaborately stage her own death, floating face-down in the lake only to turn upright and keep swimming like nothing happened. She may be, at 16, the oldest of the kids on the family holiday,...

Baptism by Water: Unrequited Longing & Fear Found in Le Bon’s Simmering Debut

In a perfect swirl of the uninitiated and inhibition, in her directorial debut, actress Charlotte Le Bon moves the pendulum beyond just pre-adult hormonal shifts. Mixed in with the sounds of the cicadas and lakeside lay of the land, in the graphic novel adaptation of Une soeur by Bastien Vivès we find a highly rousing discourse on sufferance, sexuality and the exploration of self and power dynamics by way of the gaze. Both a brutal and kind portrait on adolescence, with an assured gripping aesthetic handle, Falcon Lake stokes the matters of the heart with genre elements making certain that no one is left unscathed.…...

Loosely based on a graphic novel by Bastien Vives, Falcon Lake is another in a long line of coming-of-age tales about the discovery of first love. But Charlotte Le Bon, an actor making her feature directing debut, cloaks her take on youthful summer romance in an aura of ominous foreboding. The titular Quebecois lake is the setting for the budding relationship between Bastien (Joseph Engel) and Chloé (Sara Montpetit), which is complicated by the latter’s insistence that the place is haunted by the ghost of a boy who drowned there.

It’s this macabre tale that informs the tenor of Falcon Lake, as Le Bon blurs genre to craft a bildungsroman whose deeply pensive tone and eerie sound design and visual compositions lend it the rhythms of a ghost story. But Le Bon’s genre-bending maneuvers also prove to be frustrating at times, as the film feels just as...

Canadian actress Charlotte Le Bon steps behind the camera for the spectral love story Falcon Lake, her directorial debut. Written by Le Bon in collaboration with François Choquet, the film is loosely based on the 2017 graphic novel A Sister by Bastien Vivès. After premiering at Cannes last year during Directors’ Fortnight, Falcon Lake now receives an official trailer ahead of its theatrical and digital release later this summer. The French-language film follows an aloof teenage boy on summer vacation who fosters an unlikely relationship with an older girl, experiencing a plethora of extreme emotions while they stay on what’s […]

The post Trailer Watch: Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Canadian actress Charlotte Le Bon steps behind the camera for the spectral love story Falcon Lake, her directorial debut. Written by Le Bon in collaboration with François Choquet, the film is loosely based on the 2017 graphic novel A Sister by Bastien Vivès. After premiering at Cannes last year during Directors’ Fortnight, Falcon Lake now receives an official trailer ahead of its theatrical and digital release later this summer. The French-language film follows an aloof teenage boy on summer vacation who fosters an unlikely relationship with an older girl, experiencing a plethora of extreme emotions while they stay on what’s […]

The post Trailer Watch: Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Whether it’s Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo, Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk, The Hundred-Foot Journey, Anthropoid, The Promise, or last year’s Fresh, chances are you’ve seen Charlotte Le Bon’s work as an actor. She’s now helmed her feature with Falcon Lake, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival and will now arrive in theaters next month from Yellow Veil Pictures.

Following a shy teenager on a summer vacation who experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl, the cast features Joseph Engel, Sara Montpetit, Monia Chokri, Arthur Igual, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Thomas Laperrière, Anthony Therrien, Pierre-Luc Lafontaine, Lévi Doré, and Jeff Roop.

The director also touched on the ghostly element of the film, saying, “I am a fan of horror films. They are my first visceral memories of cinema. When I was younger in Quebec, my friends and...

Though a lot of the attention at film festivals goes to the big studio films from A-list stars and filmmakers, these events are also where film fans go to find the newest voices in cinema. And one of those names appears to be Charlotte Le Bon, the filmmaker behind the upcoming drama, “Falcon Lake.”

Debuting at Cannes last year, “Falcon Lake” is landed a spot on our Best Films of 2023 We’ve Already Seen list, and as you can see in the trailer, there’s a good reason for that.

Continue reading ‘Falcon Lake’ Trailer: Charlotte Le Bon’s Haunting Debut Film Arrives In June at The Playlist.

"Some ghosts don't realize they're dead." First love will haunt you. Yellow Veil Pics has revealed an official trailer for a mysterious little indie film titled Falcon Lake, directed by the Quebecois actress Charlotte Le Bon making her feature directorial debut. A shy teenager on a summer vacation experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl. This premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors' Fortnight section last year, and is arriving to watch in the US in June this summer. Bastien and Chloé spend their summer vacation with their families at a lake cabin in Quebec, haunted by a ghost legend. Ready to overcome his worst fears to earn a place in Chloé's heart, the holiday becomes a pivotal moment for him. Falcon Lake stars Joseph Engel, Sara Montpetit, Monia Chokri, Arthur Igual, and Karine Gonthier-Hyndman. This is quite an alluring trailer,...

Pulsar Content has acquired “Niki,” a film about the famous French-American artist Niki de Saint-Phalle, for international sales. The Paris-based banner will introduce the period project to buyers at the Cannes market with exclusive first stills.

“Niki” marks the feature debut of popular French actor Céline Sallette and stars Charlotte Le Bon (“The Walk” “Saint-Laurent”) as de Saint-Phalle.

Le Bon recently made her feature debut with “Falcon Lake” — which bowed at Cannes last year — and previously starred in Robert Zemeckis’s “The Walk,” as well as Terry George’s “The Promise” and Jalil Lespert’s “Saint-Laurent.” Le Bon stars in “Niki” opposite Damien Bonnard (“Les Misérables“).

The movie will portray Saint-Phalle from the age of 23, when she’s still a model and an aspiring actor who is married and has a two-year-old daughter, Laura. Together, they flee the U.S. during the oppressive McCarthy era and come to France, where they experience a short-lived euphoria.

Marks the third feature animation from award-winning Chinese filmmaker Liu Jian.

Paris-based Memento International has secured global sales rights to Chinese filmmaker Liu Jian’s animated feature Art College 1994, which has made a late entry to the Competition line-up at the upcoming Berlinale.

The feature will receive its world premiere at the 73rd edition of the festival, which runs February 16-26.

It marks Liu’s third feature after 2010’s Piercing I and Have A Nice Day, which also premiered in Competition at the Berlinale in 2017 and went on to win best animated feature at the prestigious Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan.

’Rise’ and ’Pacifiction’ are also strong contenders.

Louis Garrel’s crime-infused romantic comedy The Innocent and Dominik Moll’s investigative drama The Night Of The 12th are the frontrunners for France’s 48th annual Cesar Awards with 11 and 10 nominations respectively.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Cédric Klapisch’s dance drama Rise and Albert Serra’s political thriller Pacifiction follow with nine nominations each.

The titles are all selected in the best film category alongside Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s Forever Young.

Despite a strong showing from French female directors at both the box office and festivals, the best director category is all-male this year.

Louis Garrel’s “The Innocent” and Dominik Moll’s thriller “The Night of the 12th” are leading the race at the 48th Cesar Awards, France’s equivalent to the Oscars.

Nominated for 11 Cesar nominations, “The Innocent” is a heist romantic comedy starring Garrel, Roschdy Zem and Noemie Merlant, who previously starred in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and most recently in “Tár.” Produced by Anne-Dominique Toussaint at Les Films des Tournelles, the crowdpleaser world premiered out of competition at Cannes for the 75th anniversary of the festival.

“The Night of the 12th,” meanwhile, is in the running for 10 Cesar awards. The brooding topical procedural, which also opened as part of Cannes’ Premiere section, stars Bastien Bouillon and Bouli Lanners as two cops trying to solve a gruesome murder. The movie, produced by Haut et Court (“The Class”), delves into issues of gender and violence.

Other top Cesar contenders include Cedric Klapisch’s dance-filled “Rise,...

The American French Film Festival, formerly known as Colcoa, will kick off Oct. 10 with the North American premiere of docudrama “Notre-Dame on Fire,” from “Quest for Fire” director Jean-Jacques Annaud. The weeklong festival at the DGA Theater Complex in Los Angeles closes with Dominik Moll’s thriller “The Night of the 12th,” about a cold case where the only certainty is the night it occurred. Moll will also be the focus of the festival’s annual “Focus on a Filmmaker.”

“Every year, The American French Film Festival presents the very best of French cinema and television, and this year is no exception. I am personally excited about the opening night selection of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s ‘Notre-Dame on Fire’ as I think it perfectly embodies the Franco-American Cultural Fund’s mission,” said Andrea Berloff, writer and board member of the Franco-American Cultural Fund.

The festival will screen 75 films and TV series and 20 shorts,...

The second and final wave of The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival have been announced and it's filled with horror movie premieres, special events, and much more!

The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival announces today the second and final wave of titles for their upcoming 2022 edition, presented by Shudder, running October 13th to the 20th with screenings held at Nitehawk Cinema Williamsburg and Williamsburg Cinemas.

The 7th edition of New York City’s celebrated genre event will close with the U.S. Premiere of the “straight cut” of Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible, also a highlight of the festival’s Fear In Focus: French Extremity sidebar, coinciding with the film’s 20th anniversary, and will spotlight Charlotte Le Bon’s supernatural coming-of-age feature debut Falcon Lake — hot off of its North American premiere at TIFF — as Centerpiece. In addition, Bhff is proud to host a special event screening of the new genre anthology Give Me An A.

The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival announced today an impressive second wave of titles for their explosive 2022 edition running from October 13th to the 20th with screenings held at Nitehawk Cinema Williamsburg and Williamsburg Cinemas. Following last year’s return to theaters, BHFFs presents its most robust slate to date.

From the press release:

The 7th edition of New York City’s celebrated genre event will close with the U.S. Premiere of the “straight cut” of Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible, also a highlight of the festival’s Fear In Focus: French Extremity sidebar, coinciding with the film’s 20th anniversary, and will spotlight

Charlotte Le Bon’s supernatural coming-of-age feature debut Falcon Lake — hot off of its North American premiere at TIFF — as Centerpiece. In addition, Bhff is proud to host a special event screening of the new genre anthology Give Me An A. Executive produced by Natasha Halevi, member...

Canadian distributor Sphere Film has signed a multi-picture deal with A24 under which it will handle the release of nine of its titles in Canada.

Titles included in the deal include Cannes 2022 Critics’ Week breakout Aftersun, which also screens at TIFF, and Ari Aster’s Disappointment Blvd, starring Joaquin Phoenix.

The deal comes on the heels of Sphere Films’ recent acquisition of MK2|Mile End, cementing the company’s position as one of the biggest distributors on the Canadian market.

“Sphere Films and A24 share a deep appreciation of innovative storytelling and original filmmaking, which makes this partnership an especially exciting one,” said Charles Tremblay, President of Sphere Films.

“We are delighted to be in business with A24 and look forward to bringing these wonderful films to audiences across Canada.”

Further titles included in the deal comprise Daina O. Pusic’s directorial debut Tuesday, Owen Kline’s Funny Pages; Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up,...

Eight years after delivering his Oscar-nominated film “Timbuktu,” Abderrahmane Sissako is set to make his anticipated directorial comeback with “The Perfumed Hill.” Gaumont is representing in international markets and will introduce it to buyers at at Toronto. The French studio will also distribute the film in France, while Cohen Media Group will release it in the U.S.

Re-teaming Sissako with his “Timbuktu” co-writer Kessen Tall, “The Perfumed Hill” is a romance drama set between China’s tea hills, the Ivory Coast and Cape Verde. It stars Nina Melo (“Girlhood”), Han Chang (“Little Big Women”) and Ke-Xi Wu (“Nina Wu”).

The movie follows the journey of Joice, who leaves the Ivory Coast to start a new life in Guangzhou, China, after saying “no” on her wedding day. She finds a job at a tea boutique owned by Cai, a Chinese man, in the vibrant region of Guangzhou, known as the “Chocolate City.

Exclusive: Paris-based Memento International has boarded TIFF Discovery drama Something You Said Last Night by director Luis De Filippis.

The coming-of-age debut film follows Ren, an aspiring writer and mid-twenty-something, who after being fired from her job accompanies her Canadian-Italian family on vacation. The realities of being a stunted millennial and a trans woman coalesce as she struggles to balance the yearning for independence with the comfort of being taken care of.

The Canadian-Swiss project is produced by Jessica Adams, Michael Graf, Harry Cherniak, Rhea Plangg, Michela Pini and Luis De Filippis through Ja Productions and Cinédokké. Executive producers are Francesca Silvestri and Kevin Chinoy, producers of Sean Baker’s The Florida Project. Distribution is being handled by Elevation Pictures in Canada, while UTA is handling U.S. sales.

Starring are up-and-coming performer Carmen Madonia, Ramona Milano (Due South), Paige Evans (Trapped With My Husband) and Joey Parro (Nikita).

Canadian-Italian...

We had very little info to work with yesterday when we broke the news that Mélanie Laurent‘s next project was La grande odalisque. Less than 24 hours later we learn that Laurent will actually star in and play alongside the likes of Isabelle Adjani and Adèle Exarchopoulos in what Adjani is describing as a “female Mission Impossible.” More casting will be announced.

A production that falls into the high-end studio types — this is definitely a fun moment for French comic book artist Bastien Vivès as he saw one of his graphic novels serve Charlotte Le Bon’s remarkable directorial debut in Falcon Lake and can make the claim that he once again inspired a French actress turned director in this case. …...

Yesterday Toronto International Film Festival programmers added a huge dose of Canadiana to the 2022 line-up sprinkling even more films. Among the new reveals we find the Contemporary World Cinema, TIFF Docs and Short Cuts programmes taking off with the Contemporary World Cinema added a whopping eleven maple leaf offerings which include Charlotte Le Bon‘s Quinzaine preemed Falcon Lake (read review), Graham Foy‘s The Maiden (a Giornate degli Autori selection) & the world premiere screening to Carly Stone‘s North of Normal. Another film title that we predicted in Darlene Naponse’s Stellar will also receive its world premiere.…...

French acting icon Isabelle Adjani says she is set to co-star opposite Adèle Exarchopoulos in a Mission Impossible-style action comedy directed by Mélanie Laurent.

The feature is inspired by Bastien Vivès, Jérôme Mulot and Florent Ruppert’s French graphic novel ‘La Grande Odalisque’ about a gang of female expert thieves targeting high-end loot.

Adjani spilt the beans on the new role in an interview with the French newspaper ‘Nice Matin’ on Thursday.

“It will be a female ensemble film set between Paris and Corsica with Mélanie [Laurent] facing the camera and Adèle Exarchopoulos,” she said. “We are awaiting the reply of a fourth actress.”

She described the production as a “female Mission Impossible” adding “that is the touch of Mélanie Laurent who wants to do something out of the ordinary for France.”

Adjani is coming off a busy 2022, with credits including starring roles in François Ozon’s Fassbinder tribute and...

The festival runs July 21-31.

Alexandru Belc’s Metronom has picked up the award for best international film at the 39th edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival (Jff) this week.

The Romanian film was selected from 11 international titles, which included Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave and Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning. It centres around a teenage couple spending their last few days together in 1972. Belc also won the best director award when the film played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard selection earlier this year.

Berlinale managing director Mariette Rissenbeek, Hungarian filmmaker László Nemes and Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson comprised the jury.

The TIFF Platform comp title, official selection for Canada for Best International Feature Film category and sophomore feature by Ivan Grbovic was crowned Best Film at the Gala Québec Cinéma ceremony last night. Drunken Birds (aka Les oiseaux ivres) picked up a total of ten Iris awards including top categories Best Director, Best Screenplay (co-written with cinematographer Sara Mishara) , Best Actress (Hélène Florent), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Legault) and Best Cinematographer also went to Mishara who would end up competing against herself with Maxime Giroux’s Norbourg also getting a nom in that category.

Florent was the first actress in the event’s history to double down and win two awards – she also nabbed Best Supporting Actress for her part in Sébastien Pilote’s Maria Chapdelaine — that film also won Best Newcomer award for Sara Montpetit who was recently featured in Cannes in Falcon Lake — a film that will surely...

There’s a reason so many horror films — specifically the classic slashers of the ’70s and ’80s — make teenagers their imperiled protagonists. It makes for fun, squirmy viewing to see the relatable vulnerabilities of that age, with its fumbling sexual encounters and peer-pressure anxieties, sliced open by whichever knife-wielding maniac or mask-wearing ghoul happens to be lumbering about. But Charlotte Le Bon’s striking, stylish, sweetly scary debut reverses the polarity, putting the wittily observed tale of a teenage crush front and center of a ghoul-free horror film, where all that goes bump in the night is an embarrassed kid trying to clean his sheets after a wet dream. Coming-of-age movies are usually, like growing up itself, some combination of funny, sad, rueful, awkward or frightening, but rarely are they so successfully all those things at once as in “Falcon Lake.”

This ambitious yet nimbly assured tonal mash-up is introduced in the opening shot,...

Shira Haas, the star of “Unorthodox” and “Shtisel,” is set to headline “Ethel,” a period musical drama about the true story of Ethel Stark, the groundbreaking conductor who founded the first all-female orchestra in Montreal.

Besides breaking barriers in the music world, Stark has also been credited for championing social change across gender, race, language and class starting in the 1940’s.

Aisling Walsh, the Irish-born helmer of “Maudie” and BAFTA-winning “Elizabeth Is Missing” will direct the film, based on an original screenplay by Celeste Parr (“Gurov and Anna”).

The female-powered project is part of growing slate of Sphere Films, the Montreal-based banner (formerly known as MK2/Mile End) which is now presided over by Charles Tremblay. Marie-Claude Poulin (“Brooklyn”) will be producing “Ethel” for Sphere Media. It will be distributed in Canada by Sphere Films.

Sphere Films will also be distributing “Out Standing,” based on the memoir of Sandra Perron,...

Dumont describes his ambitious Northern France-set sci-fi extravaganza as a ”space and earth opera”.

Paris-based Memento International has secured sales to Bruno Dumont’s sci-fi drama The Empire and also confirmed its key cast members as Lily-Rose Depp, Anamaria Vartolomei, Camille Cottin and Fabrice Luchini.

The €6.1m (6.4m) feature is in pre-production and is due to start shooting this summer for delivery in 2023.

After exploring the Paris media world in last year’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender France, starring Léa Seydoux, Dumont returns to his native Northern France, which has been the setting for most of his films. The...