13/07/2009

At its summer session, Arte France Cinéma, part of French/German network Arte, selected two titles to receive co-production and pre-sales backing. These include Benoit Jacquot’s 19th feature, Deep in the woods.

The director, whose latest film Villa Amalia [+see also:
trailer
film profile] just screened in competition at the Karlovy Vary Festival, will team up for the sixth time with actress Isild Le Besco, who starred in The Untouchable [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (in competition at Venice in 2006).

Based on a real-life news story, Deep in the woods is set in 1865 in a hamlet in southern France where a young vagrant believed to be mute is taken in by a doctor and his daughter. From the first moments of her meeting with the vagrant, the young girl is plunged into a strange mental state, giving Jacquot the opportunity to explore amorous ties and the pitfalls of desire.

Produced by Passion Films (co-run by Josée Dayan) and Ciné@ (Philippe Carcassonne), Deep in the woods will be shot between September and October in Ardèche.

The second project selected last week by Arte France Cinéma is US director Tanya Wexler’s Hysteria (produced by Alternative Pictures). Set to star UK actors Sally Hawkins (Best Actress at Berlin in 2008 for Happy-Go-Lucky [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and Rupert Everett, the film is a comedy about a young doctor’s invention of the vibrator in puritanical 19th-century England.

This year, Arte France Cinéma has also chosen to co-produce Leos Carax’s The Beast, which will start shooting at the end of the year in London and Germany and centres on an amorous encounter unfolding over 20 years (produced by Soudaine Compagnie).

Other features to have received backing include Yves Thomas and Sophie de Daruvar’s Où Vas-Tu Judith? (“Where Are You Going Judith?, Mon Voisin Productions); Marc Fitoussi’s Copacabana (Avenue B Productions); and Bitch by China’s Lou Ye (Les Films du Lendemain).

(Translated from French)