03/11/2008

Six screenplays for debut and second features have received advances on receipts, which were ratified at the end of October by Véronique Cayla, the Director General of the National Film Centre (CNC), after the selection made by the first committee.

Chosen projects include Swiss director Jean-Stéphane Bron’s Save the American Dream. This documentary project is backed by French company Les Films Pelléas, as was the filmmaker’s previous narrative feature (My Brother is Getting Married [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean-Stéphane Bron
interview: Thierry Spicher
film profile]). The majority Swiss production (piloted by Saga Productions) will start shooting on November 20 and looks at the struggle of a Cleveland law firm during the subprime crisis.

The CNC will also back Copacabana, the second feature by Marc Fitoussi after La Vie d'artiste [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“The Life of an Artist”) in 2007. Produced by Caroline Bonmarchand for Avenue B Productions, the film is set to star Isabelle Huppert, Lolita Chamah, Noémie Lvovsky and Aure Atika.

Copacabana traces the misadventures of Babou, an idle and jovial woman who has never been concerned about social success. She nevertheless decides to get back on the right track when she discovers that her daughter is too ashamed to invite her to her wedding.

Feeling deeply hurt as a mother, Babou decides to sell time-share apartments in Ostend, in mid-winter. In the strange atmosphere of this out-of-season coastal resort, she could be tempted to take life easy, but she sticks at it in order to win back her daughter’s respect and offer her a decent wedding gift.

An advance on receipts will also go to Teddy Lussi’s Jimmy Rivière. Selected at the 2007 Angers Workshops and last year’s Émergence summer school, this debut feature is produced by Jean-Christophe Reymond for Kazak Productions.

The film centres on Jimmy, a 19-year-old gypsy who decides to give up boxing and convert to Pentecostalism. He doesn’t find Christ and returns to his pugilistic passion despite his community’s strong opposition to the sport.

The CNC has also selected three other debut feature projects: Renaud Fély’s Pauline et François (produced by Arnaud Louvet for Aeternam Films), Bénédicte Pagnot’s Une fille sans histoire (“An Ordinary Girl”, Gilles Padovani for Mille et Une Films) and Srinath Christopher Samarasinghe’s Un nuage dans un verre d’eau (“A Cloud in a Glass of Water”, Avenue B Productions), for which the pledge of an advance on receipts has been renewed.

(Translated from French)