22/11/2023 - Oulaya Amamra leads the cast of the director’s second feature film after Hard Shell, Soft Shell, which is produced by Frakas Productions and sold by Film Constellation

Actress Oulaya Amamra

Following six weeks of shooting in Camargue over the course of September and October, Animale [+see also:
film review
interview: Emma Benestan
film profile], Emma Benestan’s second feature film after Hard Shell, Soft Shell [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2021), is now in post-production, and the director has linked back up with Oulaya Amamra (awarded the Best Actress César and the Acting Revelation Lumière in 2017 thanks to Divines [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Houda Benyamina
film profile], well received in The Salt of Tears [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Souheila Yacoub
film profile], The World is Yours [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Romain Gavras
film profile] and Smoking Causes Coughing [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], to name just three, and hitting screens next year in Toutes pour une) to lead the cast of this fantasy-drama.

Written by the director herself, the story revolves around 22-year-old Nejma who works on Léonard’s bull ranch, which happens to be the best in the Camargue region. While training to win the raseteurs championship - a competition where she’ll take on bulls in an arena - a rumour that a bull has escaped begins to frighten the local crowd. Several men are found dead. And Nejma starts to experience strange and worrying symptoms…

Animale is produced by Julie Billy and Naomi Denamur on behalf of June Films and by Cassandre Warnauts for Belgian firm Frakas Productions, in co-production with France 3 Cinéma, Wild Bunch (who’ll be distributing the film in France) and RTBF. Pre-purchased by Canal+, Ciné+, France Télévisions and BeTV, the feature film also enjoys support from the CNC (by way of an advance on receipts and the Images de la Diversité Fund), the Sud and Occitanie regions, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Film and Audiovisual Centre, Procirep, Angoa, and the SOFICA companies Cinémage, Cofinova and Cinéaxe. The movie’s release in Belgium is steered by O’Brother Distribution and international sales by Film Constellation (the British subsidiary of French group Playtime). Interestingly, cinematography is entrusted to Belgium’s Ruben Impens (nominated for the César in his speciality and awarded the self-same Magritte via Titane [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Julia Ducournau, Vincent Li…
film profile], having also scooped the 2013 Ensor for The Broken Circle Breakdown [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Felix van Groeningen
interview: Felix Van Groeningen
interview: Felix Van Groeningen
film profile]).

(Translated from French)