09/07/2009

Having won acclaim for his first three medium-length films, which were all selected at Cannes (Charell and Primrose Hill in Critics’ Week 2006 and 2007, Montparnasse in the Directors’ Fortnight 2009), Mikhaël Hers will begin shooting on his debut feature, Memory Lane, in August.

The cast includes Lolita Chammah (who will appear next year, alongside her mother Isabelle Huppert, in Copacabana), Thibault Vinçon (Poison Friends [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), Stéphanie Daub-Laurent (Best Actress at Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival 2008 for Primrose Hill), Didier Sandre, Marie Rivière, Timothée Regnier, David Stzanke and Bérangère Bonvoisin.

Co-written by the director and Mariette Desert, Memory Lane centres on seven 25-year-old friends who are reunited more or less by chance in the Parisian suburb where they grew up. Over the course of a week, during their reunion at the swimming pool, their band rehearsals, strolls in the streets and deserted parks, the fragility of each friend is revealed, beneath the group’s carefree attitude.

Despite the muted force of the real and its web of uncertainty, the moments of friendship, tenderness and a budding love affair are accompanied by the feeling that these shared moments are perhaps the last.

Produced by Florence Auffret for Les Films de la Grande Ourse, Memory Lane, which is the first debut feature piloted by the Paris-based company, has an advance on receipts from the National Film Centre (CNC), a pre-sale from Ciné Cinéma, support from Sofica Cofinova and backing from the Brittany region. During the scriptwriting phase, the project received funding from the Basse-Normandie region.

Scheduled to last mainly from August 3-September 11, the seven-week shoot will wrap up with three days in November and take place in a western Paris suburb for the location shots and in Rennes for the interior shots.

The film is expected to be released in spring 2010. Ad Vitam will handle domestic theatrical and video distribution, while Films Distribution will manage international sales.

(Translated from French)