08/01/2024 - The French centre will also be supporting Lucas Belvaux, Tony Gatlif, Claire Simon, Marie Dumora, Alain Monne and Guillaume Massart, as well as four first feature film projects

Director Stéphane Demoustier (© Sabine Cattaneo)

Eleven projects have been selected in the CNC’s fifth 2023 advance on receipts session. Stealing focus amongst these is L'inconnu de la grande arche, which will be Stéphane Demoustier’s 5th feature film after 40-Love [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (screened in Venice’s Critics’ Week in 2014), Cléo & Paul [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (screened in the Berlinale’s 2018 Generation line-up), The Girl With A Bracelet [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stéphane Demoustier
film profile] (awarded 2021’s Best Adapted Screenplay César and Best Screenplay Lumière) and Borgo [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (due for release in France on 17 April). His latest opus will focus on the architect behind the Grande Arche in the Parisian district of La Défense. According to the filmmaker, "it’s the story of this totally unknown Dane who won an architecture competition and found himself thrust into a leading role heading up a gigantic building site. The film also explores the shift at the beginning of Mittérand’s era towards a harsher, colder and more liberal reality which came to impose itself over the course of his five-year term." Production is entrusted to Ex Nihilo.

Four other feature films projects were selected in this third advance on receipts committee (for fourth and subsequent feature films): Les tourmentés by Belgium’s Lucas Belvaux (an adaptation of his own novel of the same name – produced by Bizibi), Ange et Solea by Tony Gatlif (penned by the director alongside Patricia Mortagne and Valentin Dahmani – produced by Princes Production) and the documentaries Apprendre ou subir by Claire Simon (produced by Les Films Hatari) and La ligne bleue by Marie Dumora (produced by Dulac Productions).

The second committee (for second and third feature films) settled on two projects: Le cuisinier de Stalingrad by Alain Monne (written by the director together with Pierre Cabon – produced by Wanted Films and Outside Films) and Guillaume Massart’s documentary La détention (produced by TS Productions).

For its part, the CNC’s first committee (for debut feature films) selected four projects, including Phuong Mai Nguyen’s animated movie In Waves, which is due to enter into production very soon. Adapted by Fanny Burdino and Samuel Doux from AJ Dungo’s graphic novel of the same name, the film is produced by Silex Films and sold worldwide by Charades. The other lucky recipients of an advance on receipts are Sauver les morts by Tamara Stepanyan (written by Jean-Christophe Ferrari, Jean Breschand, Jihane Chouaib and Romy Coccia Di Ferro – produced by La Huit Production), La maison du vent by Auguste Bernard and Kouemo Yanghu (produced by La Mansarde Cinéma) and La danse des renards by Valéry Carnoy (produced by Les Films du Poisson).

(Translated from French)