Three of a kind for Celluloid Dreams

by Fabien Lemercier

14/09/2015 - It’s been an exceptional year for Hengamen Panahi’s company, whose films won the Golden bear, the Palme d’Or and the Golden Lion in 2015

From Afar by Lorenzo Vigas

After taking home the Golden Lion on Saturday at the 72^nd Venice Film Festival with From Afar by Venezuelan filmmaker Lorenzo Vigas, French international sales company Celluloid Dreams has scored an incredible hat trick over the course of 2015. Indeed, this year’s line-up of the Parisian company, which is managed by Hengameh Panahi, featured the three winning films of the three biggest international competitive festivals of the year, with Taxi Teheran by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, which won the Golden Bear at the 65^th Berlinale earlier this year in February, and Dheepan [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Jacques Audiard
film profile] by Jacques Audiard, which won the Palme d'orat this year’s 68^th Cannes Film Festival (sales shared with Wild Bunch).

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Celluloid Dreams is currently in action at the Toronto Film Festival, where From Afarwill be screened for the first time today in the Discovery section, and whereDheepan has already made its North American premiere in the Special Presentation section. The company’s line-up for the Canadian festival also features Much Loved [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Nabil Ayouch (the star of Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes - see review – which will be released in France on Wednesday 16 September by Pyramide Distribution) in the Contemporary World Cinema section, and another film which competed at the Venice Film Festival, Heart of a Dog [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by American filmmaker Laurie Anderson (co-produced by Arte France) which is being shown in the TIFF Docs section.

Turning to films still to be added to Celluloid Dreams’ line-up, one which stands out in particular is a film currently in post-production, The Woman in The Silver Plate [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (produced by France’s Jérôme Dopffer for Les Productions Balthazar with Japan and Belgium and starring Tahar Rahim, Olivier Gourmet, Constance Rousseau, Malik Zidi and Mathieu Amalric) and French-Luxembourgish animated film Les Hirondelles de Kaboul by duo Zabou Breitman - Elea Gobbe-Mevellec (produced by Les Armateurs and based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Yasmina Khadra – due for release in 2017).