09/05/2025 - The French sales agent will be arriving on the Croisette with a wealth of quality ammunition, including the contenders for the Palme d'Or Alpha and Case 137

Much like in 2022, French international sales company Charades has two titles in its line-up that will shine in the Official Selection's Competition at Cannes, and which it will no doubt be promoting at the 78th Cannes Film Festival Marché du Film (13-21 May). They also have two first features in Un Certain Regard, another that will close the Directors' Fortnight and several attractive new releases.

A child of the Croisette, where she made her name at the 2016 Critics' Week with Raw [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Julia Ducournau
film profile] before winning the 2021 Palme d'Or with Titane [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Julia Ducournau, Vincent Li…
film profile], Julia Ducournau returns to the Competition with her third feature: Alpha. The French filmmaker wrote the screenplay, which centres on 13-year-old Alpha, a troubled 13-year-old living with her single mom. Their world collapses the day she returns from school with a tattoo on her arm. Their world falls apart when, one day, she comes home from school with a tattoo on her arm... Starring Tahar Rahim, Golshifteh Farahani, Mélissa Boros and Emma Mackey, the film was produced by Mandarin & Compagnie and co-produced by Kallouche Cinéma and Belgian company Frakas Productions. It will be released in French cinemas on 20 August by Diaphana.

The Charades team of Yohann Comte, Carole Baraton and Pierre Mazars will also be betting in the Competition on Dominik Moll's Case 137. The German-born French filmmaker will be in the running for the Palme d'Or for the 3rd time after Harry, He's Here to Help in 2000 and Lemming [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2005. Starring Léa Drucker, Yoann Blanc and Guslagie Malanda, his new opus (which he co-wrote with Gilles Marchand) sees case 137 appear to be just another case for Stéphanie, an investigator with the IGPN, the police force. A tense demonstration, a young man injured by an LBD shot, circumstances to be clarified to establish responsibility. But something unexpected happens to trouble Stéphanie, for whom dossier 137 becomes more than just a number... The film was produced by Haut et Court (and co-produced by France 2 Cinéma), which will distribute it in France on 19 November.

The Charades line-up also includes two debut features to be unveiled in Un Certain Regard: Urchin by British Harris Dickinson (the story of a homeless man in London, trapped in a cycle of self-destruction as he tries to turn his life around) and The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo by Chilean director Diego Céspedes (a joint production between France, Germany, Spain, Chile and Belgium), centred on a small queer community in the desert in the early 1980s. Finally, the Sundance attraction, Sorry, Baby by American Eva Victor, will close the Directors' Fortnight.

Five new films have also been added to the extensive line-up, including Parallel Tales by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (see article), in pre-production with a top-notch cast including Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Vincent Cassel, Pierre Niney and Adam Bessa.

On the animation front, Charades is officially launching pre-sales for the in-progress titles In Waves by Phuong Mai Nguyen (a tale of love and adversity in the world of California surfing - produced by French company Silex Films) and The Keeper of the Camphor Tree by Japan's Tomohiko Ito.

Also joining the Charades line-up (in association with New Europe Film Sales), True-ish by Macedonian-Australian Goran Stolevski (appreciated at Sundance in 2022 with You Won’t Be Alone [+see also:
film review
film profile] and at Venice Orizzonti in 2023 with Housekeeping for Beginners [+see also:
film review
interview: Goran Stolevski, Alina Serban
film profile]). Headlining the cast are Germany's Sandra Hüller and American Colman Domingo in a story centred on a Manhattan PR executive specialising in smear campaigns who accepts a project in the Balkans with a “peace lab” where she actually creates fake news against EU-fringe regimes. Her staged footage of atrocities leads to major international problems.

Finally, still in partnership with New Europe Film Sales, Charades is embarking on the project The Painted Bride by American Jeremiah Zagar (with Jeremy Allen White, Mandy Patinkin and Isabella Rossellini in the cast) and will of course continue to negotiate at Marché du Film for the other films already announced in its extensive line-up, such as No Rest For The Wicked by Danish director Kasper Kalle Skovsbøl (with Pilou Asbæk as the lead) and Queens of the Dead by Tina Romero currently in post-production, as well as the in-progress animated film New Dawn by Japanese director Yoshitoshi Shinomiya.

(Translated from French)