BERLINALE 2007 Competition / France
Ozon’s Angel to close festival
The official competition of the 57th Berlin International Film Festival (February 8-18) will have a distinctly French feel to it, as François Ozon’s Angel [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] has been announced as the fourth French production in the line-up.
The film joins Olivier Dahan’s La Vie en Rose [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see article), selected as the opening film, André Téchiné’s The Witnesses [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Jacques Rivette’s Don’t Touch the Axe [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news).
Filmed in English, Angel is the ninth feature by 39 year-old Ozon. The director is no stranger to the Berlin competition, where he presented his Water Drops on Burning Rocks in 2000 and 8 Women [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2002 (Outstanding Artistic Achievement for ensemble female cast).
An adaptation of a 1957 novel by Elizabeth Taylor, the film is set in early 19th-century England. Starring Romola Garai, Sam Neill, Lucy Russel, Michael Fassbender and Charlotte Rampling, it recounts the dazzling rise of Angel Deverell, a young writer prodigy who realises her childhood dreams of success, glory and love. But is that not too much for one single woman? "The adaptation of this book," explained Ozon "was the opportunity to confront myself with a fictional universe and to create a great epic, like the melodramas of the 30’s and 40’s, by recounting the destiny of a flamboyant character using the theme of ‘rise and fall’."
Produced by Olivier Delbosc and Marc Missonnier for Fidélité (regular partners on all the director’s films), the €15m budget Angel was co-produced by France 2 Cinéma (including €1.3m in funding and pre-sales), Belgium’s Scope Pictures, and British outfits Poisson Rouge Pictures and Foz/Virtual Film.
With pre-sales from Canal +, the feature – being sold internationally by Celluloid Dreams – opens on French screens through Wild Bunch Distribution on March 14.
Other titles in the Berlinale line-up this year include four minority French co-productions: Desert Dream by Zhang Lu (South Korea/France), El otro by Ariel Rotter (Argentina/France/Germany), Goodbye Bafana [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Denmark’s Bille August (Germany/France/Belgium/UK/Italy) and Irina Palm [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sam Garbarski
interview: Sébastien Delloye
film profile] by Sam Garbarski (Belgium/Germany/Luxembourg /UK/France).
(Translated from French)
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