04/07/2017 - The Tahitian director will shoot his feature debut, toplined by Sebastian Urzendowsky and produced by Local Films

Next year will mark the start of a shoot that will be a true first in the history of the French film industry, as Paul Aivanaa Manaté will become the first director from French Polynesia to direct a feature film, with Paradise [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paul Manate
film profile]. Having turned heads with his short films A l'arraché (presented in the Canal+ collection in the 2010 Cannes Critics’ Week) and Nevermore (screened at Clermont-Ferrand in 2013), the filmmaker has secured the services of German actor Sebastian Urzendowsky (very popular in Goodbye First Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mia Hansen-Love
film profile], Land of Storms [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adam Csaszi
film profile] and Pingpong [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Matthias Luthardt
interview: Sebastian Urzendowsky
film profile]) in the lead role of his first feature; he will be flanked by Blanche-Neige Huri, Ahura Temaru and Patrick Descamps.

Written by Paul Aivanaa Manaté in partnership with Cécile Ducrocq, the story revolves around Teivi, a young, mixed-race parliamentary assistant aged 25, who is amoral, lazy and flirtatious. One day, he bumps into Yasmina again, a distant Maori cousin of his with mystical powers, who makes a strange prediction about him out of the blue: "You are going to die… But I’ll save you." Soon, Teivi starts to be afflicted by dizzy spells and hallucinations and, tangled up in a real-estate corruption case, he starts to waver and lose control. Convinced that Yasmina can cure him, he sets off in search of her and travels all the way to the wild and phantasmagorical peninsula.

Produced by Nicolas Brevière for Local Films, Paradise will be co-produced by A Perte de Vue Film, Anaphi Studios and Filmin'Tahiti, with backing from the CNC's advance on receipts, from the Sofica Cofinova, the Region of Brittany, France Ô and French Polynesia, where the shoot will take place. The French release and the international sales will be handled by UFO.

Local Films is gearing up to launch Summer Lights [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Jean-Gabriel Périot (presented in the New Directors section of San Sebastián last year) in theatres on 16 August (courtesy of Potemkine Films) and has Nomades by Olivier Coussemacq (see the article) in post-production.

(Translated from French)