26/01/2012

Françoise Charpiat’s debut feature, Cheba, which will be shot in spring, starring Isabelle Carré (Romantics Anonymous [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile]) and Rachida Brakni (pictured - The Straight Line [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) is among the seven film projects selected at the first 2012 session of the Ile-de-France Regional Support Fund for Technical Film and Audiovisual Industries.

Co-scripted by the director and Mariem Hamidat, the film centres on Djemila who has finally left the family apartment and shows excessive social conformity in an attempt to erase her background, and Emma, her rebellious neighbour, who has difficulty raising her two children alone. Daily life is hard and things get off to a bad start between them. However, a love of music brings them closer and their unlikely friendship will bring them back to themselves. Produced by Anne Derré for Legato Films, this comedy has a €4.4m budget including a pre-acquisition from Canal+. Shooting is expected to last 43 days.

Ile-de-France also selected two films that have already been shot. The first is Solveig Anspach’s Queen of Montreuil, starring Florence Loiret-Caille and Didda Jonsdottir. Produced by Ex Nihilo, this low-budget comedy centres on Agathe who has just lost her husband. But the arrival at her home of two Icelandic people, stuck in France because of the crisis raging on their island, will help her come to terms with her loss in a quick and unexpected way. Diaphana will release the film in French theatres.

Shot last summer by Bruno Podalydès, co-scripted by the director and his brother Denis, who stars alongside Valérie Lemercier and others, Granny’s Funeral traces the misadventures of a pharmacist who has to organise a funeral while he negotiates his job, his passion for magic, his wife and his mistress. Piloted by Why Not, the film is co-produced by France 3 Cinéma and was pre-bought by Canal+ and Ciné+. It will be released on June 20 in France by UGC. Wild Bunch is handling international sales.

The Ile-de-France region will also back L’Antiquaire (“The Antique Dealer”), the third directorial feature by producer François Margolin. The film, which is expected to star Elsa Zylberstein, Sami Frey, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Jean-Marc Barr, will centre on a woman in search of the collection of paintings stolen from her Jewish family during the war. Co-scripted by the director with Sophie Seligmann, Vincent Mariette and Jean-Claude Grumberg, this production by Margo Films will be backed, among others, by France 3 Cinéma, The Match Factory, Canal + and the Evens Foundation.

Another selected project is the comedy Grand Départ by Nicolas Mercier (who wrote the screenplay with Simone Study), whose cast will include Pio Marmaï, Jérémy Elkaïm and Eddy Mitchell. Produced by Move Movie, this debut feature centres on a young thirty-something who has to break free from his family in order to live a normal life. Co-produced by France 2 Cinéma and StudioCanal, the film will start shooting next month.

Finally, Ile-de-France will support directorial duo Thomas Szabo and Hélène Giraud’s French/Belgian animated co-production Minuscule (produced by Futurikon) and Bernard Bloch’s French/Swiss documentary Oh Les Vaches (Les Productions de l’œil sauvage).

(Translated from French)