26/07/2011

Shooting wraps next Friday in the US on French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb’s eighth feature: Just Like a Woman. This is the first English-language title by the filmmaker who has been thrice nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar with Dust of Life in 1996, Days of Glory [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean Bréhat
interview: Rachid Bouchareb
film profile] in 2007 (also winner of the Best Actor Award at Cannes in 2006) and Outside the Law [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] in 2011 (after screening in competition at Cannes 2010), and was also selected in competition at Berlin in 2001 (Little Senegal) and 2009 (London River [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]).

Co-produced by France, the UK and the US, this rite-of-passage road movie stars Brit actress Sienna Miller and Iranian thesp Golshifteh Farahani (soon to be seen in Chicken With Plums). Other notable cast members include Roschdy Zem, Tim Guinee, Chafia Boudraa, Bahar Soomekh, Sayed Badreva, Jesse Harper and Usman Ally.

Scripted by the director, Marion Doussot and Joëlle Touma, the film centres on an American housewife and a young North African woman who travel from Chicago to Las Vegas to take part in an oriental dance competition. The director cited Jerry Schatzberg’s Scarecrow as an influence.

Produced by Bouchareb for Tessalit Productions and Taghit (US arm of 3B Productions), Just Like a Woman is mainly co-produced by Arte France, UK company The Bureau and US-based Cohen Media Group. International sales are being managed by Doc & Film International, with Artificial Eye having already stated its intention to buy the film for the UK.

(Translated from French)