An advance on receipts from the CNC for Mikhaël Hers’ Amanda
- The CNC will also be throwing its weight behind films by Bruno Podalydès, Stéphane Demoustier, Jacques Deschampsand Dominique Lienhard
Five projects have been accepted during the first 2017 session of the CNC’s second advance on receipts committee. Standing out among them is Amanda [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mikhaël Hers
film profile], the third feature by Mikhaël Hers, following Memory Lane [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (unveiled in Filmmakers of the Present at Locarno in 2010, and which came along after he made three medium-length films, all of which were selected at Cannes) and This Summer Feeling [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mikhaël Hers
film profile] (screened at Rotterdam in 2016). Written by the director together with Maud Ameline (nominated for the César Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2013 for Camille Rewinds [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), the story takes a look at the chaotic present through the story of David, an indecisive twenty-something who loses his sister in a bombing and then finds himself in charge of his seven-year-old niece, Amanda. Produced by Pierre Guyard (a European Film Promotion Producer on the Move in 2015) for Nord-Ouest Films, the feature will be co-produced by Arte France Cinéma and will apparently star Vincent Lacoste (nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actor in 2010 for The French Kissers [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], for Best Actor in 2015 for Hippocrates [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Lilti
film profile] and for Best Supporting Actor this year for In Bed with Victoria [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Justine Triet
film profile]).
Another advance on receipts goes to Bécassine! [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the eighth feature by Bruno Podalydès. After winning the César Award for Best First Feature Film in 1999 for Only God Sees Me, the filmmaker then went on to helm Liberté-Oléron (2001), The Mystery of the Yellow Room, Perfume of the Lady in Black [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bruno Podalydès
interview: Pascal Caucheteux
film profile] (out of competition at Venice in 2005), Park Benches [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2009, Granny’s Funeral [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (2012 Directors’ Fortnight) and The Sweet Escape [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2015. This time, he is trying his hand at an adaptation of the comic book created by Joseph Porphyre Pinchon and Caumery; the film will be produced by Why Not.
Other titles being backed by the CNC include La fille au bracelet by Stéphane Demoustier (his second feature, following 40-Love [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which was popular in the Venice Critics’ Week in 2014), which will be staged by Petit Film, and the musical comedy documentary The Grand Hotel Ballet [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Jacques Deschamps (the fifth feature by the filmmaker, who won the Best First Work Award at Venice in 1996 with the fiction film Still Waters Run Deep), which will be produced by TS Productions.
The list of the lucky titles selected during this session is rounded off by Fires in the Dark [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Dominique Lienhard (his second feature, after Müetter in 2006), which will be staged by Offshore. The filmmaker has adapted the novel of the same name by Japanese author Akira Yoshimura, which is set in a remote village between the sea and the mountains, where the inhabitants try their best to survive any way they can. A ten-year-old boy finds that he has to take on the weighty responsibility of looking after his family when his father goes far away for two years. He is also responsible for keeping an eye on a number of large fires lit on the beach, which are used to cook salt but also, he finds out, to draw in the boats on stormy nights. One night, a boat runs aground, spilling its precious cargo for the benefit of the villagers. Could this be manna from heaven?
(Translated from French)