15/10/2006

"I’d like to make audiences laugh while at the same time try and tell a deep story", said French director Catherine Corsini when presenting her out-of-competition film Ambitious [+see also:
trailer
film profile] at the RomeFilmFest, an ironic comedy that tends to borders on the sentimental.

The story, which she wrote with Benoit Graffin and Cédric Kahn, portrays the world of publishing and its distortions through a love story between an aspiring writer (Eric Caravaca) and a successful editor (Karin Viard) who is bitter, at least for most of film.

Their relationship unfolds through lies – she pretends to have read his manuscript before rejecting it – and theft (he secretly writes a novel based on the her father’s letter and diaries). Then comes deception and revenge, yet despite all the conflicts the ending is a happy one: everything comes together in the end with a passionate kiss at a train station. The ending was intentionally sentimental and inspired, admits the director, by Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

"I wanted to make a film about a couple,” explained Corsini. “A modern comedy that was light yet at the same time deep and serious in tackling themes of power, legitimacy and political commitment. And thanks to Karin Viard and Eric Caravaca, their characters change and move us when they’re not making us laugh".

Produced, distributed and sold by Pyramide , in co-production with Camera One, with the participation, among others, of Canal + and Ciné Cinéma and with support from the Procirep and Angoa-Agoca, Ambitious marks a new stage in the collaboration between Viard (2000 Best Actress César winner) and Corsini after The New Eve.

With the producer from Pyramide Productions, Fabienne Vonier, Corsini is preparing her next project, which is currently in the writing phase.

(Translated from Italian)