Le Besco in Waltz’s Pas douce
Best newcomer at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, young French actress Isild Le Besco will be making another festival appearance in the Forum sidebar at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival (February 8-18, 2007) with Pas douce by Jeanne Waltz, in which she stars alongside Steven Pinheiro de Almeida, Lio, Yves Verhoeven and Michel Raskine.
A French/Swiss co-production and the second feature by the director – who also penned the script – takes place in the only hospital in a small town. In a wild and isolated mountain region (a small town with only one hospital where she works), a young nurse makes an unsuccessful suicide attempt and seriously wounds a teenager who winds up in her ward. But nobody suspects a thing. Picking up a trail of hints left here and there by his young nurse, Marco finally realises that the person looking after him is the one who shot him. An odd relationship between the two ensues.
Produced by Paris outfit Bloody Mary Productions, Pas douce was co-produced by Rhône-Alpes Cinéma and Switzerland’s Princes Films. Sold worldwide by Pyramide International, the feature goes on release in France in June through Les Films du Paradoxe. Cinematography was by Hélène Louvart.
Another title in the Berlin Forum is Fred Poulet and Vikash Dhorasoo’s Substitute, a Local Film production about a French football sub at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Meanwhile, Aurélien Gerbault’s documentary All Blossom Again (a Qualia Films production) follows Portuguese director Pedro Costa to Fontainhas, a poor inner city area of Lisbon, which also served as the setting for his film Colossal Youth [+see also:
trailer
film profile], screened in official competition at Cannes 2006.
The Forum is host to several French co-productions: Dol [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Hiner Saleem, co-produced by Novociné, who will handle the title’s French release on January 24; Salif Traoré’s Faro, la reine des eaux (a co-production with Pav Communication); Elvis Pelvis by UK helmer Kevin Aduaka; Camila Guzmán Urzúa’s The Sugar Curtain (co-produced by Luz Films and Paraíso Production); and the documentaries Le cercle des noyés by Belgium’s Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd (see news – co-production Zeugma Films) and Ron Havilio’s Potosi: The Journey (Ex Nihilo & ARTE).
In Generation, the young audience section, French cinema will be represented this year at Berlin by two films already screened at the RomeFilmFest: (Call Me Elizabeth [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Jean-Pierre Ameris, and U [+see also:
trailer
film profile]by directing duo directing duo Serge Elissalde and Grégoire Solotareff, as well as Catalin Mitulescu’s Romanian/French co-production The Way I Spent the End of the World [+see also:
trailer
film profile], screened at Cannes Certain Regard.
(Translated from French)
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