23/11/2022 - The director behind Mercuriales and Sophia Antipolis has set up shop in Monaco to film his Petit Film production

Monday 21 November saw Virgil Vernier kick off filming on 100,000 Light-Years, his third feature film after Mercuriales [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (screened in Cannes’ ACID selection in 2014) and Sophia Antipolis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Virgil Vernier
film profile] (gracing Locarno’s Cinéastes du Présent section in 2018). The director also walked away with this year’s Jean Vigo Prize for Best Short Film via Kindertotellieder, having previously presented his medium-length movie Sapphire Crystal in a Locarno special screening in 2019. The cast of his latest opus stars Zakaria Bouti, Mina Gajovic and Victoire Kong.

Written by the filmmaker alongside Benjamin Klintoe, the story unfolds in Monaco, which is paradise on earth for a post-reality-TV generation who have grown up fantasising over a privileged lifestyle, with its promises of infinite pleasures. But what hides within these lofty towers, and behind the tinted saloon car windows and villa gates? How do you step through a two-way mirror?

100,000 Light-Years is produced by Amélie Jacquis and Jean des Forêts on behalf of Petit Film, in co-production with Marie Dubas for Deuxième Ligne Films. Benefitting from a CNC advance on receipts, the feature film also enjoys support from the SOFICA company Cofinova, as well as from Normandie Images, Procirep-Angoa, and Isabelle Hiesse and Paul Dupuy. Filming will unfold between 21 November and 10 December, with Jordane Chouzenoux helming photography. Distribution in France falls to UFO Distribution, with international sales still under negotiation.

For the record, Petit Film are also currently overseeing post-production on Stéphane Demoustier’s new movie (whose title is yet to be confirmed and which is being shot with the utmost discretion, starring Hafsia Herzi, Moussa Mansaly and Florence Loiret-Caille).

(Translated from French)