Since 30 September, Romain Daudet-Jahan has been shooting his feature debut, Kyma. Having taken part in the Screenwriting Workshop at La Fémis and turned heads with his short films such as Magnetic Fields (selected for the Unifrance Short Film Prize), the director has assembled a cast including Jules Lefebvre (who rose to fame in Mothers’ Instinct [+leggi anche:
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The story, written by the director together with Émilie Dubois, revolves around Tony, a lonesome teenager. His passion is animals, and his life is turned upside down when he meets a mysterious creature in his tiny village: the Kyma, a living soundwave that is able to shatter solid matter. Tony tames it, without realising how dangerous it is… The plot owes much to US genre cinema – a type of film where the fantastical and the supernatural have taken root, much like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial by Steven Spielberg, or even Take Shelter and Midnight Special by Jeff Nichols.

Kyma is the third title to be produced in the context of Parasomnia Productions, a label for genre features born of the partnership between Moana Films and Sony Pictures Entertainment France. Following a call that saw 2,600 projects apply, five finalists were selected, with the objective being to fund each title to the tune of €1 million and to enable low-budget genre films with strong concepts to emerge in France. They will subsequently be distributed nationally by Sony Pictures Releasing France. Among them are 37 : L’ombre et la proie by Arthur Môlard, which will be released in theatres on 20 November, and Dernier signal by Benjamin Busnel, which is in post-production.

Produced by Marc Missonnier for Moana Films, Kyma has been pre-purchased by Canal+ and has secured support from the Grand Est region (where the shoot will take place for a period of just over four weeks). Interestingly, Sony Pictures has acquired all distribution rights, including the international sales.  

As a reminder, Moana Films recently staged such titles as Consent [+leggi anche:
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