26/10/2006

Debut feature projects Versailles by Pierre Schoeller, Sommeil Blanc (lit. "White Sleep") by Jean-Paul Guyon, La joueuse d’échecs (lit. "The Checks Player") by Caroline Bottaro, and the documentary El Impenetrable by Italian director Daniele Incalcaterra are among the latest films selected by the first CNC Advances on Receipts Commission.

Set to go into production by Charles Gassot's outfit in Paris in spring 2007, La joueuse d’échecs is about a cleaning lady who one day discovers a check player in a hotel room and develops a passion for this game, which she finds fulfilling despite the several traps. This is the directorial debut feature by Bottaro, scriptwriter of three films by Jean-Pierre Améris and director of a 1995 acclaimed short La mère (lit. "The Mother"), starring Nathalie Baye.

Meanwhile, Guyon – who started out in production – is preparing his film Sommeil Blanc, a cross between a thriller and the portrait of a woman. Produced by Nicolas Namur for Lille-based Les productions du Cercle Bleu, the feature – set to begin shooting in December 2007 – is the story of a young woman who lives alone in a mountain chalet and her encounter with a child who appears from nowhere to awaken two demons from her past.

The Advances on Receipts Commission has also selected the project (still without a distributor) Versailles by veteran filmmaker Schoeller, who co-wrote Jean-Pierre Limosin's Carmen [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (shown at the 2005 Venice Film Festival), Brice Cauvin's Hotel Harabati [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Berlinale 2005), L’Afrance by Alain Gomis (Best Debut Film at the 2001 Locarno Film Festival) and The Dreamlife of Angels by Erick Zonca (Best Actress at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival). Schoeller started his directing career on television with 2002's Zéro défaut, which was selected at numerous international festivals.

The CNC will also support Incalcaterra's documentary El Impenetrable, the name of a vast uninhabited region of six million hectares on the western Chaco plain in Paraguay. The title is produced by TS Productions and directed by Incalcaterra, who lived in Argentina and took part in the Varan and Fémis workshops.

CNC Director General Véronique Cayla has re-elected Claude Durand as President of the Advance on Receipts Commission for 2007. Producer Marie Masmonteil will remain Vice President of the first commission, while Michèle Ray-Gavras (KG productions) has been appointed Vice President of the second commission and Aïssa Djabri (Vertigo films) as Vice President of the third commission (advance on receipts after direction).

(Translated from French)