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PRODUCTION France

Summer heats up for the Garrels and Bellucci

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Philippe Garrel’s French/Italian/Swiss co-production Un Été Brûlant (“A Burning Hot Summer”) starts shooting this week. The 62-year-old director, whose four latest films were in competition at Venice (Night Wind in 1999, Wild Innocence in 2001 and Regular Lovers [+see also:
trailer
interview: Philippe Garrel
film profile
]
in 2005, winner of the Silver Lion for Best Director) and Cannes (Frontier of Dawn [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
in 2008), has this time cast Italian actress Monica Bellucci and Louis Garrel (who teams up with his father for the third time here) in the starring roles.

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Co-scripted by the director, Marc Chodolenko and Caroline Deruas, Un Été Brûlant recounts the torments of a painter whose actress wife has left him. The film will open with the suicide of the male protagonist in a car accident and look back in flashback at their stormy romantic relationship.

This exploration of the precariousness of feelings and life will be in the same vein as the director’s previous works with pared-down dialogue, silences and intimate atmospheres. In summing up his project, Garrel says: "Through art, we fight for eternity; but there’s no point because we’re mortal."

Un Été Brûlant is produced by Edouard Weil for Rectangle Productions (who are moving on to a second film with Garrel, after Frontier of Dawn). The film’s €3.1m budget includes co-production support from Italy (26% investment) via Faro Film and Switzerland (11%) via Prince Film, an advance on receipts from France’s National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC), backing from the Italian Ministry of Culture and the Swiss Federal Office for Culture (OFC), €400,000 from Eurimages and €192,000 from the Ile-de-France region.

The scheduled eight-week shoot will take place in and around Rome and Paris. French distribution and international sales will be managed by Wild Bunch.

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(Translated from French)

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