19/12/2006

Director Pascale Ferran won the prestigious Louis Delluc Prize on Monday for her film Lady Chatterley. The prize is awarded to the Best French Film of the Year.

In announcing Ferran as winner of a competition – whose winners since 1937 include such great directors as Renoir, Sautet, Clouzot, Bresson, Truffaut, Pialat, Chéreau, Desplechin – the critics’ jury, presided over by Gilles Jacob, paid tribute to a film "of great sensitivity, with raw emotion and a learned way of directing."

The 2006 Louis Delluc Award for Best Debut Film went to actor Jean-Pierre Darroussin for his directorial debut feature Premonition [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], an Agat Films & Cie production that screened at the 2006 Venice Film Festival Critics’ Week (see article).

Released seven weeks ago by Ad Vitam and with over 120,000 admissions on approximately 50 screens (with at least one daily screening that is over two and a half hours), Lady Chatterley marks the return of Ferran to the big screen after Coming to Terms with Death (Caméra d'Or at Cannes 1994) and the television film Cross-Roads (Fipresci Prize at Venice 1996).

An adaptation of the second version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence, the project – scripted by the director, Roger Bohbot and Pierre Trividic – came to fruition thanks to Gilles Sandoz (winner of the 2005 Delluc with Regular Lovers, see interview with Philippe Garrel) of Maïa Films.

Incorporating a mini TV series of two 90-minute episodes (€3.2m budget) and a €2.3m feature film including a co-production with Belgium’s Saga Film (12%) and UK outfit Zephyr Films (18%), Lady Chatterley stars Marina Hands, Jean-Louis Coulloc'h and Hippolyte Girardot.

International sales are being handled by Films Distribution.

(Translated from French)