Pyramide International presents a five-star Cannes line-up
- Last Summer and Youth (Spring) grace the official competition, Marguerite's Theorem earns a special screening, and Ama Gloria and Inchallah un fils to feature in Critics’ Week
Unspooling within the 76th Cannes Film Festival, an excellent Marché du Film (running 16 – 24 May) is undoubtedly on the cards for French sales agent Pyramide International (directed by Eric Lagesse and steered by Agathe Mauruc). In fact, their line-up consists of five films set to be showcased across different selections on the Croisette, but first and foremost two Palme d’Or pretenders: Last Summer [+see also:
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interview: Catherine Breillat
film profile] by Catherine Breillat, and Wang Bing’s documentary Youth (Spring) [+see also:
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trailer
film profile].
This will be French director Catherine Breillat’s second showcase at a festival of this level after 2007’s The Last Mistress [+see also:
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film profile]. A loose adaptation of May el-Toukhy’s Danish film Queen of Hearts [+see also:
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interview: Gustav Lindh
interview: May el-Toukhy
film profile] (handed the Audience Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival), Last Summer revolves around a successful lawyer who puts her career on the line and risks destroying her family by having an affair with her 17-year-old stepson. Stand-out names in the cast of this SBS production include Léa Drucker, Samuel Kircher, Olivier Rabourdin and Clotilde Courau.
The first instalment in a trilogy, Youth (Spring) by China’s Wang Bing takes us 150km from Shanghai to Zhili. Young people flood into this town dedicated to textile manufacturing from all rural regions along the Yangtze River. They’re all 20-years-old, they share dormitories and they eat in corridors. They work tirelessly with a view to one day raising a child, buying a house or setting up their own workshop. As the seasons go by, friendships and romances fold and unfold against a backdrop of bankruptcies and family pressures. It’s a documentary produced by French firm Gladys Glover alongside Luxembourg’s Films Fauves and Holland’s Volya Films, in co-production with House on Fire, Arte France Cinéma, Le Fresnoy, CS Production and Eastern-Lion Pictures and Culture Media Co., Ltd.
The Official Selection will also see Pyramide International wagering on Marguerite's Theorem [+see also:
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interview: Anna Novion
film profile] by Anna Novion (revealed in Critics’ Week 2008 via Grown Ups [+see also:
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film profile]). Starring Ella Rumpf, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Clotilde Courau, and scripted by Anna Novion, Agnès Feuvre, Marie-Stéphane Imbert and Mathieu Robin, the film revolves around Marguerite, a brilliant maths student at the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure, whose future seems all mapped out. The only girl in her year, she’s finishing a thesis which she then needs to present to a room full of researchers. On D-Day, a mistake upsets all of her certainties and her world falls apart. Marguerite decides to drop everything in order to start over again… Production comes courtesy of French outfit TS Productions in co-production with Switzerland’s Beauvoir Films.
Last but not least are two aces within Pyramide International’s line-up which have been selected for Critics’ Week: Ama Gloria [+see also:
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interview: Marie Amachoukeli
film profile] by Marie Amachoukeli, which has been awarded the opening slot in a special screening, and Inchallah A Boy [+see also:
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film profile] by Jordan’s Amjad Al Rasheed. Produced by Jordan-based firm The Imaginarium Films, in co-production with their compatriots at Bayt Al Shawareb and France’s Georges Films, this debut feature film takes place in present-day Jordan. Following the sudden death of her husband, 30-year-old Nawal must fight for her share of his will in order to save her daughter and her house, in a society where having a son changes everything…
Four post-production titles also now feature in the line-up: My New Friends [+see also:
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film profile] by André Téchiné (starring Isabelle Huppert, Hafsia Herzi and Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), Auction by Pascal Bonitzer (starring Alex Lutz up front), On the Pulse [+see also:
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interview: Alix Delaporte
film profile] by Alix Delaporte (starring Alice Isaaz and Roschy Zem in lead roles) and The Path of Excellence [+see also:
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film profile] by Swiss director Frédéric Mermoud (article).
And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s also the market premiere on the cards for Marie Garel-Weiss’ work A Wonderful Girl [+see also:
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(Translated from French)