08/03/2013 - The CNC will also back the first feature films of Ada Louielh, Naël Marandin, Cyprien Vial and Philippe Lacôte

Five projects for debut feature films were selected during the first 2013 session held by the first committee of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC). Amongst them, Angélique stands out, by the trio Marie Amachoukeli - Claire Burger – Samuel Theis (photo), to be produced by Elzévir Films.

Selected for the Ateliers d’Angers 2012 with this project, the three filmmakers already worked together on the medium-length film Forbach (2nd prize in the Cinéfondation competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and Grand Prix in Clermont-Ferrand in 2009). Among other things, Marie Amachoukeli and Claire Burger also directed C’est gratuit pour les filles, which won the 2010 César for Best Short Film.

Angélique’s screenplay focuses on a woman who has been working for a long time as a hostess in a cabaret on the French-German border. Her provocative temperament goes well with this nocturnal lifestyle, rhythmed by parties and drunken evenings. But when an old client, Michel, asks her to marry him, a young girl’s dream finally comes true. Marriage would be a chance for Angélique to change her life...  

A promise of an advance on receipts was also attributed to Papa Lumière [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Ada Louielh (Les Films du Kiosque production), which should start filming in June, starring Niels Arestrup. The screenplay is about Jacques and Safi, who arrive in France, repatriated from Abidjan. He has dark skin, tanned by Africa and his life as an expat hotel-keeper. His adolescent halfcaste daughter has gotten used to living with her mother and does not know what to think about her father. After being moved to a shelter in Nice, in the shade of their small room, they will learn to look at each other, know and love each other...

The CNC will also support Il nous reste la nuit [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Naël Marandin (Folamour Productions). Already an Emergence prize-winner, the project traces the mishaps of a young man sought by the police and taken in by a clandestine Chinese woman who lives with her teenaged daughter in the apartment of a rich old man, whom she takes care of in exchange for accomodation. Living in close quarters and the necessary discretion so as to not arouse the owner’s suspicions create an uneasy atmosphere. Very soon, the frustrated desires of the apartment’s occupants are caught up in the ups and downs of the police investigation.

An advance on receipts will also go to Bébé Tigre [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Cyprien Vial(a Dharamsala and Darius Films production) and Run by Philippe Lacôte (Banshee Films in coproduction with the Ivory Coast), who was noticed last year at the Atelier of the Cannes Film Festival and already benefits from funding from Arte France Cinéma for this spring's filming of the odyssey of a young man pretending to be insane in order to commit a political assassination. 

(Translated from French)