PRODUCTION / FUNDING France / Italy
EXCLUSIVE: Jasmine Trinca and Leïla Bekhti to topline La Nouvelle Femme
- The two actresses are shooting Lea Todorov's first feature film in the spring, produced by Geko Films with Tempesta and sold by Indie Sales
Mid-April will see filming begin on La Nouvelle Femme [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the debut feature by Léa Todorov (who gave us the medium-length documentary Sauver l’humanité aux heures de bureau, among other works). Set to shine up front in the cast, we find Italy’s Jasmine Trinca (who nabbed the 2018 and 2020 David di Donatello Best Actress trophies, courtesy of The Goddess of Fortune [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Lucky [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sergio Castellitto
film profile], the latter also winning her a trophy in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2017; recently seen in The Story of My Wife [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ildikó Enyedi
film profile] and The Catholic School [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefano Mordini
film profile]) and French talent Leïla Bekhti (nominated for this year’s Best Actress César thanks to The Restless [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joachim Lafosse
film profile], likewise well-received in the series The Eddy [+see also:
series review
series profile] of late).
Written by Léa Todorov, the story (favoured by the president of the 2022 Screenplay Award) takes us back to 1900 to follow in the wake of Lili d’Alengy, a Parisian darling at the height of her fame, who flees Paris in order to hide her "idiot" daughter. Once in Rome, her life is turned upside down by a meeting with Maria Montessori, a woman doctor who has developed a method for teaching children with learning difficulties. But if Lili wants to play the public part of a "new woman", an emancipated, modern female, she will have to pay the price – a child born out of wedlock and hidden away. She will soon be forced to choose between her child or her fate.
La Nouvelle Femme is produced by Grégoire Debailly (one of the European Film Promotion’s 2019 Producers on the Move – read our interview) on behalf of Geko Films, in co-production with Carlo Cresto-Dina for Italian firm Tempesta Film (who have notably steered all of Alice Rohrwacher’s films, including La chimera [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] which is currently shooting). Pre-purchased by Canal+ and Ciné+, the feature film also benefits from an advance on receipts from the CNC and enjoys further support from the Ile-de-France region, the Emergence film direction residency and the Italian Ministry for Culture (via its dedicated minority co-productions fund). The 35-day film shoot will unfold in Rome and the Ile-de-France region, with Sébastien Goepfert (A Tale of Love and Desire [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) heading up photography. Distribution in France will be steered by Ad Vitam with international sales in the hands of Indie Sales.
For the record, Geko Films have just finished shooting a TV fiction film for Arte in the French Occitanie region: Sages-femmes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Léa Fehner
film profile] by Léa Fehner (starring ten students from Paris’s Conservatoire d’art dramatique).
(Translated from French)
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