11/04/2025 - The French film centre will also be throwing its weight behind the feature debuts by Maïté Sonnet, Alexandre Smia and Michaël Sztanke

Four projects have been selected following the second 2025 session held by the first committee (dedicated to feature debuts) of the CNC’s advance on receipts.

Standing out among the four titles being backed is Les princes du BTP by Antoine Giorgini, who turned heads with his short films Bandits (which won an award at Angers in 2014), Réplique (rewarded in the national competition at Clermont-Ferrand and winner of the Unifrance Grand Prix Special Jury Prize in 2016), Air comprimé and Good Evening (which were presented in the national competition at Clermont-Ferrand in 2019 and 2023, respectively).

Among the cast are Anthony Bajon (Best Actor Award at Berlin in 2018 for The Prayer [+see also:
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interview: Cédric Kahn
film profile], nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2024 for Junkyard Dog [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and giving a strong performance recently in Maldoror [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Fabrice Du Welz
film profile]), Édouard Sulpice (who rose to fame in All Hands on Deck [+see also:
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interview: Guillaume Brac
film profile], popular in the recent title The Quiet Son [+see also:
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interview: Delphine and Muriel Coulin
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interview: Alain Guiraudie
film profile], currently gracing screens in Bon Voyage, Marie and in Once Upon My Mother [+see also:
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film profile]), Ana Blagojevic (All Hands on Deck, The Rapture [+see also:
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interview: Iris Kaltenbäck
film profile]) and Sophie-Marie Larrouy (Athena [+see also:
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interview: Romain Gavras
film profile], the series A Very Ordinary World).

The story, written by Antoine Giorgini, revolves around three bricklayers who find a chest full of gold Louis coins on a building site. Instead of informing the property owner about it and sharing the trove with him, as the law obliges, they decide to claim that they found it at one of their houses. Produced by Marie Dubas for Deuxième Ligne Films (which has staged all of the director’s short films) and by Jean des Forêts for Petit Film, Les princes du BTP has been pre-purchased by Canal+ and Ciné+, and will be distributed in French theatres by Zinc. The shoot will take place in July and August.

Two other fiction feature debuts have secured an advance on receipts: Tu feras tomber les rois by Maïté Sonnet (staged by Ethan Selcer for Quartett Production and already supported by the Gan Foundation for Cinema – see the news) and Jupiter by Alexandre Smia (the screenwriter of titles such as In the Hell of Kabul: 13 Days, 13 Nights), who has teamed up with Thomas Finkielkraut to co-write the script for this "political thriller set against the backdrop of a nuclear crisis", as described by producer Hugo Sélignac (of Chi-Fou-Mi Productions).

Lastly, the CNC will also be backing the feature-length documentary project Salle 206 by Michaël Sztanke, produced by Babel Production.

Interestingly, and of more topical relevance, five films announced yesterday for the Cannes Official Selection (see the article) benefited from an advance on receipts from the CNC: the competition entry Nouvelle vague [+see also:
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film profile] by Richard Linklater, A Private Life [+see also:
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film profile] by Rebecca Zlotowski (which will be unveiled out of competition), Tell Her that I Love Her [+see also:
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film profile] by Romane Bohringer (selected as a Special Screening) and two titles that will have their world premieres in Un Certain Regard: The Great Arch [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Stéphane Demoustier
film profile] by Stéphane Demoustier and Meteors [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Hubert Charuel and Claude L…
film profile] by Hubert Charuel.

(Translated from French)