15/04/2014 - The first clapperboard is about to slam for the second feature by Brigitte Sy, based on the novel by Albertine Sarrazin and produced by Alfama Films

Leïla Bekhti

According to Cineuropa’s sources, shooting will begin on 28 April for L'astragale [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the second feature film by Brigitte Sy, following the widely noticed Free Hands [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (selected at the Berlinale Forum in 2011). Standing out in the cast of this new opus, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Albertine Sarrazin (published in 1965), are rising stars Leïla Bekhti (winner of the César for Best Newcomer in 2011 for Tout ce qui brille [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; nominated for the César for Best Actress in 2012 for The Source [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; popular, among other actors, in A Better Life [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cédric Kahn
film profile]; and due to be seen in theatres again on 3 September in Maintenant ou jamais) and Reda Kateb (discovered through his performance in A Prophet [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jacques Audiard
interview: Jacques Audiard and Tahar R…
film profile]; very widely noticed in titles such as Coming Home [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Zero Dark Thirty; and soon to be seen in Hippocrate, Qui vive and Loin des hommes). They are joined by Esther Garrel, India Hair, Jean-Benoit Ugeux, Jocelyne Desverchere, Jean-Charles Dumay and Delphine Chuillot.

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Written by the director together with Serge Le Péron, the story begins one night in April 1957. Nineteen-year-old Albertine jumps over the walls of the prison where she has been serving a sentence for bank robbery. During the fall, she breaks her anklebone, but she manages to crawl to the road and flags down a car. She is helped by Julien, an ex-convict, who takes her and hides her at the house of one of his friends in Paris. While he goes about his thuggish life from pillar to post in the provinces, she learns to walk again in France’s capital. However, Julien is then arrested and put in prison. Alone and with the police on her tail, she works as a prostitute just to survive, and as she moves from one hideout or encounter to the next, she fights for her fragile liberty at all costs. But the physical suffering that she has to endure is nothing compared to the suffering that Julien’s absence causes in her very core… 

Produced by Paulo Branco for Alfama Films Production, L'astragale is benefitting from co-production by France 3 Cinéma and an advance on receipts from the CNC. Shooting will take place in Paris and Ile-de-France from 28 April until 6 June. Distribution in France and international sales will be headed by Alfama Films.

(Translated from French)