Filmmaker and editorial cartoonist Aurel will follow up his César-winner “Josep” with “Desert,” an animated Western set in France’s Cevennes mountain range.  Pitched between a more traditional oater and an “Indiana Jones” style adventure and set in the late 19th century, “Desert” will follow a Mexico-born gunslinger exploring south-central France with a mysterious mission. Rediscovering […]

Opening up this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, Audrey Diwan’s “Emmanuelle” marks an unexpected follow-up to her Golden Lion winner “Happening” – at least on paper, anyway. If anything, the filmmaker followed a similar line, using a literary adaptation to emphasize sensorial experience, in this case the evasive quest for physical pleasure. “The project was […]

French-German institution Arte was named top broadcaster at this year’s Cartoon Forum in Toulouse, offering a fitting end to an edition that exalted public broadcasters and intra-European cooperation. Attendees at Cartoon Forum’s 35th edition also paid tribute to Germany’s ZDF Studios and Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon, offering respective honors for Investor/Distributor and Producer of the year. […]

Public broadcasters have taken center stage at this year’s Cartoon Forum, which runs Sept. 16–19 in Toulouse. With the European animation industry still facing a market crunch linked to substantially reduced streaming investment – and as producers now grapple with tough headwinds and reduced opportunities – industry eyes have turned to state funds. Indeed, public […]

Animation oriented sales outfit Gebeka International has boarded Xilam Films’ upcoming family feature “Lucy Lost,” while France’s Le Pacte and Canal+ have picked up French domestic distribution and pay-tv rights. Together the three new partners will help launch this seaside adventure tale, co-written and directed by animation vet Olivier Clert and adapted from “War Horse” […]

Maverick director Alain Guiraudie rarely makes concessions. Through offbeat titles like 2013’s “Stranger by the Lake,” 2016’s “Staying Vertical” and 2022’s “Nobody’s Hero,” the French filmmaker has explored death and desire with an unflinching eye, offsetting social bemusement with an awe for nature. His work is defiant, queer, and idiosyncratic, which makes a recent bout […]

Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio’s coming-of-age saga “In the Summers” took top honors at this year’s 50th edition of the Deauville American Film Festival, claiming both the Grand Prize and the Fondation Louis Roeder Revelation Prize, awarded by a parallel jury. At once intimate and expansive, the film traces a Latin-American family portrait, using four vignettes to […]

French promotional film org Unifrance will debut the first ever feature on Minecraft with this year’s MyMetaStories Film Festival. Running Oct. 11 – Nov. 3 on more than 30 VOD platforms alongside an Oct. 18 – 21 stint on Minecraft, this digital festival’s second edition will reach out to the online youth on their own […]

With six Luxembourgish projects on display, this year’s Venice Film Festival served as a victory lap for a modest state with an outsized impact. Boasting 1,200 professionals, a vibrant animation sector, and an output of 25-30 titles per year, the Grand Duchy’s co-production driven ecosystem is all the more remarkable for its relative youth and […]

Dotted with history and marked by weathered beauty, the Normandy coast will stay carved into the TV landscape long after buyers depart this week’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Le Havre. With this year marking the 80th anniversary Operation Overlord, the coast will play an evident starring role in historical docs from across the globe, all while […]

French true crime broke barriers this year when the non-fiction miniseries “Unsuspected” premiered at Series Mania. Such a showcase is rare for a factual program, but then, “Unsuspected” is a no common doc. Bringing together a pair of filmmakers with respective backgrounds in narrative features and investigative reporting, the four-part inquiry into a maddening 1970s […]

Move over Scandinoir, because Gallic producers are giving crime the French Touch. Beloved at home and lucrative abroad, a new strain of audience inclusive procedurals has paved inroads on the international market. Indeed, fueled by the earlier success of long-running series “Candice Renoir,” and made stratospheric by smashes “HPI” and “Tandem,” the so-called “light crime” […]

Passion and pride take the podium in the upcoming documentary “Crois Pas Qu’on Dort” (French for “Don’t Think We’re Sleeping”). An underdog story par excellence, the doc follows three working-class athletes as they ready for glory at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Variety can share the trailer (below). Directed by Nick Walters and […]

The journey towards this year’s Venice Film Festival began nearly two decades ago for documentarian Marie Losier and pop icon Merrill Nisker – better known to the world as Peaches. Upon meeting backstage at a show, Losier instinctively turned her Bolex camera on the musician — and then didn’t stop filming for 17 years. The […]

Paris-based sales agent Luxbox has backed Erige Sehiri’s next feature, “Marie & Jolie.” Written by Sehiri, Anna Ciennik and Malika Cécile Louati, and produced by Henia Production and Didar Domehri of Maneki Films, the drama explores the quiet Christian communities in the predominantly Muslim metropolis of Tunis. Pathé Afrique and Jour2Fête have boarded as respective […]