10/12/2024 - Sergi López and Solène Rigot are toplining the filmmaker’s first fiction feature, produced by Les Films d’Ici Méditerranée and sold by The Party Film Sales

Sergi López during the location scouting for La Baleine

Monday 20 January will see filming begin on Sylvère Petit’s first fiction feature, La Baleine. The cast is led by Spanish actor Sergi López (awarded 2001’s Best Actor César for Harry, He’s Here to Help, nominated for the 2002 and 2007 Best Actor Goyas and for Best Supporting Actor in 2011 and 2021, recently well-received in Pacifiction [+see also:
film review
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interview: Albert Serra
film profile], among other works, and hitting cinemas on 15 January in Maldoror [+see also:
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interview: Fabrice Du Welz
film profile] and in Oliver Laxe’s upcoming film that same year) and French actress Solène Rigot (nominated for 2016’s Best Newcomer Lumière via Orphan [+see also:
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film profile] and well-received in September in Toronto thanks to Shepherds [+see also:
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Other names in the cast include Bernard Blancan (awarded an acting prize in Cannes back in 2006 via Days of Glory [+see also:
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interview: Jean Bréhat
interview: Rachid Bouchareb
film profile] and recently seen in The Count of Monte-Cristo [+see also:
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film profile], Stillwater).

Written by Sylvère Petit and Nathan Le Graciet, the story takes us back to autumn 1985. A storm awakens the Mediterranean. A village is devastated, the harvest ravaged. The sea has deposited a whale on the beach. It’s dead and is declared a carrier of disease. With his tractor, his harvest trailer and three kitchen knives, ailing, misanthrope wine grower, Corbac, wants to save the cetacean’s skeleton from a sanitary blast of dynamite. Day and night, his daughter Mathilde sees the biggest of creatures paraded, piece by piece, past the church, the school and the distillery, awakening the villagers’ unconscious minds and stirring up violence. Mathilde knows her father: he’ll see it through to the bitter end…

La Baleine is produced by Serge Lalou and Sophie Cabon for Les Films d’Ici Méditerranée, in co-production with Upside Films, Belgian firm Iota Production (Isabelle Truc and Lawrence Absalon) and Spain’s Imagic Telecom (Jordi B Oliva). Pre-purchased by Ciné+, the feature film enjoys support via a CNC advance on receipts, as well as backing from Eurimages, the Gan Film Foundation, the Occitanie/Pyrénées-Méditerranée region (where filming will unfold until 14 February, with Michaël Capron heading up photography), Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole, the SOFICA companies Cineventure and Cofimage, and Procirep/Angoa. It also benefits from partnerships with the Pelagis Observatory and Paris’ Natural History Museum, and enjoys further backing from Le Groupe Ouest and the Francophone Co-Production Meetings, among other sources. International sales are steered by The Party Film Sales and French distribution by Jour2Fête.

For the record, Les Films d’Ici Méditerranée are currently overseeing Josep [+see also:
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interview: Aurel
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(Translated from French)