11/07/2008

A loyal partner of European film, Arte France Cinéma has selected three new feature film projects for co-production and pre-sales funding: Anti-Christ by Danish director Lars von Trier; Felicia plus que tout (“Felicia More Than Anything”) by Dutch filmmaker Melissa de Raaf and Romania’s Razvan Radulescu; and Ici by France’s Angelo Cianci .

Co-produced by French company Slot Machine, Anti-Christ will be shot in August and September in Germany, in particular in North Rhine-Westphalia, whose regional fund, Filmstiftung NRW, has provided €900,000 in backing. Produced by Meta Louise Foldager for Danish company Zentropa Entertainment, the feature is co-produced by Zentropa International Cologne and Lucky Red (Italy), with financial support from Arte/ZDF. International sales are being handled by TrustNordisk.

This is a very European financial arrangement for a film with a universal theme. Following the disappearance of their child, a man and a woman face their anguish, alone in an isolated hut in the forest, overcome by the brutality of nature.

Selected at the latest Cannes Film Festival Workshop, Felicia plus que tout has also secured backing from Arte France Cinéma. This debut feature by Raaf and Radulescu (who wrote The Death of Mister Lazarescu [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Niki and Flo and Boogie [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dragos Vîlcu
interview: Radu Muntean
film profile]) is produced by HiFilm and co-produced by France’s Unlimited.

The film follows a young Romanian woman (Ozana Oancea) who has emigrated to the Netherlands, as she spends an eventful day in her native Bucharest, torn between her biological family (mother, father and sister) and the family she has created abroad. Shooting will take place in September and October in the Romanian capital.

Arte France Cinéma’s selection also includes Ici, the debut feature by French director Cianci, who has won numerous awards for his shorts. Produced by Tu vas voir, in partnership with Peter and Mathieu Kassovitz, Ici centres on a North African family who are confronted, in an apartment in the Parisian suburbs, with an unfortunate hostage-taking situation which degenerates into an absurd comedy.

At Arte France Cinéma’s previous selection session, the following films were chosen: Jean-Jacques Zilbermann’s Ma mec à moi (“My She-bloke”, produced by Agat Films et Cie) and Patrice Chéreau’s Persécution (Azor Films), in which Romain Duris plays a man who stalks the woman he loves and then winds up being pursued by a stranger who interferes in his life.

In 2007, Arte France Cinéma pre-bought and co-produced 25 features and invested a total of €7.44m. Selected projects currently in production include Mia Hansen-Love’s Le père de mes enfants (“The Father of My Children”, see news); Spanish director Marc Recha’s C’est ici que je vis (“It’s Here I Live”), whose shoot will wrap at the end of June; Austrian director Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes; Yuki & Nina by Nobuhiro Suwa and Hippolyte Girardot; Vladimir Perisic’s The Ordinary People; and Bruno Dumont’s Hadewijch.

(Translated from French)