Alice Taglioni in Cookie by Léa Fazer

by Fabien Lemercier

27/06/2011 - Filming is due to begin in July on Franco-Swiss film-maker Léa Fazer’s fourth feature, Cookie. After Welcome to Switzerland which had opened Un Certain Regard (A Particular Outlook) at the Cannes Festival in 2004, Notre univers impitoyable [trailer] (2008) and Ensemble c'est trop [trailer] (2010), the director is embarking on an account of personal reconstruction following a bereavement. It stars Alice Taglioni (Sans arme, ni haine, ni violence (2007) [trailer], La proie [trailer]) and Belgian actress Virginie Efira ((L’amour, c’est mieux à deux (2010) [trailer]), Mehdi Nebbou, Scali Delpeyrat and Arié Elmaleh.

Written by the director together with Benoît Graffin, the screenplay has Adeline as its heroine, a young flight hostess who has lost her husband and baby in a car accident. Closely guarded by her sister and her brother-in-law, she has survived her grief by hiding behind a glass wall. She no longer feels anything – neither fear, sadness, joy nor anger. But this balance is shattered when her Chinese cleaner disappears, leaving a false address and…a little boy. Initially reticent, even indifferent towards him, Adeline slowly allows herself to be moved by the quiet distress of this motherless child. In order to help him, she agrees to fight, to promise, to get involved and, overcoming a thousand obstacles, she finds a risky solution to take him back to China. It is then she understands that the hardest thing for her is to be separated from him. By giving up the child, by returning him to his mother, she finally finds her way in life again.

Produced by Pauline Duhault for Elia Films, Cookieis co-produced by TF1 DA and France 2 Cinéma, and also benefits from pre-sales from TPS and Cinéma Series. A 40-day shoot is planned to take place in Paris, in the region of Ile-de-France and in Hong-Kong, with Christophe Offenstein as director of photography. Distribution to French cinemas will be handled by UGC Distribution and foreign sales by TF1 International.

Elia Films will see one of its recent productions, Itinéraire Bis by Jean-Luc Perréard (see article) coming to our screens on August 3 (Mars Distribution), and Quand je serai petit by Jean-Paul Rouve (news is in post-production, the cast of which includes Miou Miou, Claude Brasseur, Xavier Beauvois and Arly Jover).

(Translated from French)