Since 20 May, Gilles Graveleau, an actor notable for his performances in the series and film Kaamelott [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], has been shooting his feature-length directorial debut: La Startup. The filmmaker, who cut his teeth with the short film Joss (2019), has assembled a cast including Thierry Frémont (César Award for Most Promising Actor in 1988, seen recently in the series Liaison [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Virginie Verrier
scheda film]) and Jacques Chambon (glimpsed in Corporate [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Nicolas Silhol
scheda film], An Ordinary Mother [+leggi anche:
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The story, written by the director himself, unfolds in a remote village, and follows Bob and Gus, two struggling fifty-somethings who share a flat and are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits. They receive a proposition from the France Travail employment office to create their own company as a last resort in order to extricate themselves from their situation. With only a lack of knowledge and guileless enthusiasm to their name, they gleefully pass through all of the stages involved in starting a business, eventually succeeding despite everything, and shaking the very foundations of the financial and digital system. Because their true pleasures in life lie elsewhere: fishing, picnics and gazing at an English woman bathing in the river.

Produced by Jean-Pierre Lagrange for JPL Productions (which is trying its hand at fiction after having made a big splash in the documentary world, particularly in the 2023 Berlinale Panorama with The Cemetery of Cinema [+leggi anche:
recensione
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intervista: Thierno Souleymane Diallo
scheda film] by Thierno Souleymane Diallo and in Cineasti del presente at Locarno in 2022 with Fragments from Heaven [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film] by Adnane Baraka) and by Matière Première Productions, La Startup is being co-produced by Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma. Interestingly, the film amassed €1 million from 40 company directors in the region via an endowment fund. The shoot will take place almost entirely in Yzeron until 3 July, with Emmanuel Thery in charge of the cinematography. The French distribution and international sales are still under negotiation.