17/10/2008

Five feature film projects were selected at the latest session of the second advances on receipts committee of the National Film Centre (CNC).

Chosen projects include Patrice Chéreau’s Persécution (production Move Movie) starring Romain Duris, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jean-Hugues Anglade; Hélène Angel‘s Faites demi-tour dès que possible (“Do A U-turn As Soon As Possible”, Les Films du Worso); Tsai Ming-liang’s Visages (“Faces”, JBA Production); and Richard Dindo’s Vivre sur Mars (“Living on Mars”, Les Films d’Ici).

An advance on receipts will also go to Jean-Pierre Denis’ Philomène, which looks back at a surprising and dramatic episode in the history of the French Resistance during the Second World War. In 1943, in Dordogne, Sister Philomène, a nun at the Thiviers hospital, harbours a secret: she’s in love with the chaplain of the Maquis and can’t bear the fact he’s leaving her for the nurse attached to the Resistance movement.

Feeling rejected, she anonymously denounces to the Gestapo around ten Resistance fighters whose names she’d learned during her stormy affair. Intercepted by the Resistance movement through some postal workers, this denouncement leads to the trial and execution of the nun by the Resistance fighters.

Produced by Araprod (headed by Marie-Claude Arbaudie, Gorune Aprikian and Philippe Muyl), the film is co-written by the director, Yvon Rouve and Sadia Rastoll. The title is set to star Laetitia Casta in the lead role.

The estimated budget is between €4-5m and shooting will take place entirely in Dordogne (the director’s native region) over a period of 9-10 weeks.

Winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes in 1980 with Adrien’s Story, Denis went on to direct Hideout (presented on the Croisette in 1983 in the Perspectives section), Field of Honour (in official competition at Cannes 1987), Murderous Maids (four Cesar nominations in 2001 and Best Female Newcomer Award) and La Petite Chartreuse [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2005).

(Translated from French)