17/06/2005

No less than 23 French productions or co-productions will be headlined at the 40th edition of Karlovy Vary Festival for which the selected films were announced last Tuesday and which will run from the 1st to the 9th of July. There is a strong presence, in every category, which demonstrates the vitality of French filmmaking and its implications in the organising of finances in the film business worldwide.

Specialist at big festivals (selected in official competition at Cannes in 1992, 1996, 1999 and 2003, at Venice in 2000 and at Berlin in 1997), the Chilean director Raoul Ruiz who has lived in Paris since 1974 will be among the candidates at Karlovy Vary for the first time. He will screen, in competition, Le domaine perdu, a dream-like film interpreted by Grégoire Colin, François Cluzet and Marianne Denicourt, retracing the erratic career of a pilot during the Second World War. A European co-production bringing together (Marie Masmonteil and Denis Carot for Elzevir Films - 67 %), Rumania (Atlantis Films - 11 %), Spain (Impossible Films - 11 %) and Italy (Revolver - 11 %), the film had a budget of 2,89 million euros, an Advance on Receipts of 400 000 euros from the National Film Centre (CNC), support worth 300,000 euros from Eurimages and a pre-sale from Canal +. Released in France on the 1st June by Gemini Films with a total of 24 prints, Le domaine perdu is sold internationally by Bavaria Film International.

In the Horizons section, 11 French productions or co-productions will be headlined out of the 42 films selected. And there is no shortage of big names with the brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne with their recent Cannes Palme d’Or winner L'enfant [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne
film profile] (co-production Belgium-France), Arnaud Desplechin ( Rois et reine [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), Carlos Reygadas ( Batalla en el cielo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carlos Reygadas
interview: Jean Labadie
film profile], co-production Mexico-Belgium-French-Germany), Wim Wenders ( Don’t Come Knockin' [+see also:
trailer
film profile] , co-production Germany-France) and Alexander Sokurov ( The Sun, co-production Russia-Italy-France). Also among the elected few in the Czech Republic are Va, vis et deviens [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Denis Carot
interview: Didar Domehri
interview: Radu Mihaileanu
film profile] by Radu Mihaileanu, Quand la mer monte by Yolande Moreau and Gilles Porte and Cavalcade Steve Suissa.

Elsewhere, six French features, among them three co-productions, are on the list of the section Another View, notably Le grand voyage by Ismaël Ferroukhi (best first film at Mostra 2004), Mon Ange by Serge Frydman and also the Austrian-Belgian-French co-production Le Cauchemar de Darwin by Hubert Sauper. And the Forum of Independents, offers the remarkable Innocence by Lucile Hadzihalilovic (France-Belgium-UK), Doo Wop by David Lanzmann, Panorama by Marinca Villanova and Violent Days [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Lucile Chaufour.

(Translated from French)