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PRODUCTION France

Julie Delpy looks at family in Skylab

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Shooting started two days ago in Brittany on Julie Delpy’s fourth feature, Skylab. After Two Days in Paris [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christophe Mazodier
interview: Julie Delpy
film profile
]
and The Countess [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anna Maria Mühe
film profile
]
, which were both selected at the Berlinale, the director is tackling a family comedy, a saga set over two days.

Delpy will star alongside Eric Elmosnino (Je T’aime, Moi Non Plus [+see also:
trailer
Interview with Joann Sfar, director of…
interview: Kacey Mottet Klein
film profile
]
), Sophie Quinton, Marc Ruchmann, Michèle Goddet, Aure Atika and Bernadette Lafont. The cast also includes Jean-Louis Coulloch (Lady Chatterley [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), Vincent Lacoste (Best Male Newcomer Cesar 2010 for The French Kissers [+see also:
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trailer
film profile
]
), Noémie Lvovsky, Candice Sanchez, Albert Delpy, Valérie Bonneton and Denis Menochet (Inglourious Basterds [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
).

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Scripted by Delpy, the film is structured like a long flashback experienced by Albertine and triggered by a train journey with her husband and two children. During the trip, she remembers another journey she made when she was ten years old.

We are transported from 2018 to 1979. Albertine is with her parents and maternal grandmother on her way to the house of Aunt Suzette, her father’s elder sister, to spend the summer holidays there.

It’s her paternal grandmother’s birthday and the whole family is gathered together, including uncles, aunts and cousins. Endless meals, heated discussions about politics, racism, sexuality and education: the parents pass on their anxiety to the children who hear everything.

Skylab, the US satellite launched by NASA, thus becomes a huge fantasised monster, when it is just an obsession of Anna, Albertine’s mother, a woman who is as charming as she is neurotic, and is convinced it will crash into the west coast of France.

Produced by Michaël Gentile and Lauraine Heftler for The Film, Skylab is co-produced by France 2 Cinéma, Mars Films and Tempête Sous un Crâne. It has been pre-bought by Canal+ and Ciné Cinéma.

Shooting is scheduled to last seven weeks until July 10, almost entirely in Brittany except for one day in Paris, with lensing by DoP Lubomir Bakchev. Mars Distribution will release the film in France in spring 2011, while international sales are being handled by Films Distribution.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from French)

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