10/06/2011

After Bad Blood (1986) and The Lovers on the Bridge (1991), Denis Lavant will work for the third time in a film by Leos Carax, on Holy Motors. The director’s fifth feature will be shot over eight weeks in and around Paris in August and September. The project is among the titles selected at the June committee session of Arte France Cinéma, through which it will receive pre-acquisition and co-production backing.

Holy Motors is produced by Martine Marignac for Pierre Grise Productions. Its €3.9m budget also includes an advance on receipts from the National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC), a grant from the Ile-de-France region, and pre-acquisitions from Canal + and Ciné+ (formerly known as CinéCinéma).

Scripted by Carax (who came to attention with Boy Meets Girl in 1984 and hasn’t made a feature since Pola X in 1999), Holy Motors traces 24 hours in the life of a person who travels between different lives, including that of a murderer, beggar, CEO, monstrous creature and father of a family.

Like a lone killer acting in cold blood and going from one hit to the next, he has a completely different identity in each of his intertwining lives. Like in a film-within-a film, he plays different roles. But where are the cameras, the film crew and the director? And where is his house, his resting place?

Arte France Cinéma also selected Le Grand Soir by directorial duo Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern (see news – GMT Productions); and Post Tenebras Lux by Mexico’s Carlos Reygadas. Produced by French company Le Pacte, the latter film will tell a love story in a rich family in the Mexican countryside and will wrap shooting between October and December 2011.

(Translated from French)