14/12/2023 - Aurélien Vernhes-Lermusiaux’s project features among the selected works of 2023, which also come courtesy of Louise Hémon, Frédéric Farrucci, Lawrence Valin and Ugo Bienvenu

Director Aurélien Vernhes-Lermusiaux, whose project La couleuvre noire has been selected

The Gan Film Foundation, which has been supporting first and second feature film projects for 36 years, has unveiled its selection for 2023.

Stealing focus among the lucky few is La couleuvre noire, which will be Aurélien Vernhes-Lermusiaux’s second feature film after the much remarked upon movie Towards the Battle [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (awarded the Louis-Delluc Best First Film Prize of 2021). The story revolves around Ciro. Having left for the city years ago, he returns to the Colombian desert of Tatacoa when he learns that his mother is dying. In this land both sublime and hostile where his family have been living for generations, he must contend with his father, a childhood friend who has since become an ambitious entrepreneur and his young love with whom he had a daughter whom he has never met. Despite the tensions at play, Ciro accompanies his father into the desert to bury his mother, a gruelling journey which stirs up forgotten feelings and encourages him to make some decisions over his future… Filming will unfold in Colombia in March and April 2024. Production is steered by David Hurst on behalf of Dublin Films.

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Another selected movie is L’engloutie, a first feature film project by Louise Hémon which will star Galatéa Bellugi in a lead role and is set to be shot in January and February next year. The story takes us back to 1899, in a hamlet in the Hautes-Alpes department, which is encircled by the snowy high plateaus of a remote mountain. One stormy night, the inhabitants of this hamlet witness the arrival of Aimée, a young, secular and republican primary school teacher who is due to teach a handful of children over the course of the winter. But soon after she arrives, an avalanche swallows up its first highlander… Production is entrusted to Margaux Juvénal on behalf of Take Shelter, while distribution in France falls to Tandem.

The Gan Film Foundation will also be throwing its weight behind Little Jaffna [+see also:
film review
interview: Lawrence Valin
film profile] by Lawrence Valin and Le Mohican [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Frédéric Farrucci
film profile] by Frédéric Farrucci (starring Alexis Manenti and Mara Taquin in lead roles), both of which are in now post-production.

Last but not least, the foundation has awarded its 2023 Special Prize to Ugo Bienvenu’s animated feature film project Arco. The movie posits the idea that rainbows are men and women from the future sent to observe the past. Ten-year-old Arco lives in a distant future, in 2932. During his first flight in his rainbow-coloured suit, he veers off of his trajectory, loses control and ends up in the past in 2075. A little girl his age called Iris sees him fall from the sky. She goes to his aid and does her best to help him return home, to his time… Production falls to Félix Givry on behalf of Remembers, in co-production with MountainA (a company co-founded by Natalie Portman).

For the record, the 2023 broadcast prizes awarded by the Gan Foundation within Cannes’ Critics’ Week and the Annecy Animated Film Festival went to Inchallah A Boy [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Amjad Al Rasheed (due for release in France on 6 March 2024 via Pyramide) and Chicken for Linda! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Italy’s Chiara Malta and French director Sébastien Laudenbach.

(Translated from French)