02/03/2022 - The French duo’s second feature will be co-produced by the French-German TV network, alongside Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Banel & Adama

Directors Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel (© Semaine de la Critique)

The first 2022 selection committee held by Arte France Cinéma (steered by Olivier Père) has opted to co-produce and pre-purchase two projects.

Stealing focus among these is Eat The Night [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Caroline Poggi and Jonathan…
film profile], which will be Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel’s second feature after Jessica Forever [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], a movie discovered in Toronto’s Platform competition in 2018 and later screened in the Berlinale’s 2019 Panorama section. Written by the two filmmakers, the story sees twenty-something Pablo, a small-time dealer in a northern town, meeting a mysterious young man called Night. Fuelled by a sense of omnipotence, Pablo and Night fly too close to the sun and end up angering a rival gang. At the same time, Pablo is growing apart from his little sister Apolline, who is forced to come to terms with the announced end of Darknoon, an online video game which they’ve grown up with and a digital paradise lost which will soon be wiped off the map, in ticking time-bomb style… The project is steered by Agat Films and Atelier de Production.

Arte France Cinéma is also throwing its weight behind Banel & Adama [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ramata-Toulaye Sy
film profile], the first feature film directed by Ramata-Toulaye Sy, who co-scripted Our Lady of the Nile [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Sibel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Çağla Zencirci and Guillaum…
film profile], and who turned heads behind the scenes with her short film Astel (unveiled in Toronto in 2021, where it was awarded the Special Jury Prize, and the winner of the Best First Fiction Film trophy in Clermont-Ferrand’s national competition this year). Penned by the filmmaker, the story revolves around Banel and Adama, who are 18 and 19 years old, and who live in a small, remote village in northern Senegal. It’s all they know of the world. Nothing exists beyond their universe. Adama is quiet and introverted while Banel is passionate and rebellious, and they’re destined to love each other for all eternity. But their relationship is severely tested by their community’s conventions, because in their little village there’s no room for passion, and even less space for the chaos it brings… Filming is set for May and June 2022, while production is entrusted to Parisian firm La Chauve-Souris in league with Senegal and Mali (Astou Films, Astou Production, DS Productions).

For the record, Arte France Cinéma is also supporting upcoming films from Alice Rohrwacher, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Arnaud Desplechin, Mia Hansen-Løve, Claire Denis, Bertrand Bonello, Pietro Marcello, Miguel Gomes, Philippe Garrel, Tarik Saleh, Abderrahmane Sissako, Lisandro Alonso, Jonas Trueba, André Téchiné, Quentin Dupieux, Louis Garrel, Albert Serra, Alexandros Avranas, Patricio Guzmán, Noémie Lvovsky, Alice Diop, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Anna Jadowska, Sophie Letourneur, Emmanuelle Nicot, Justyna Tafel, Johanna Pyykkö, Diego Céspedes, Karim Moussaoui, Tiago Guedes, Dinara Droukarova, Régis Sauder, Stephan Castang, Sofia Alaoui, Thomas Balmès and Dror Moreh, as well as animated films by Momoko Seto and Pierre Földes.

(Translated from French)