Longing for a child in Burning Desire

by Fabien Lemercier

15/03/2010 - Shooting wrapped last Friday on Bernard Jeanjean’s third feature, Burning Desire, starring Clovis Cornillac (Bitter Victory [trailer]) and Olivia Bonamy (MR 73 [trailer]).

The new work by the director of J’me Sens Pas Belle (the surprise hit of summer 2004) and Please Don’t Go [trailer] (2007) centres on a couple who long for a child and turn to artificial insemination. The cast also includes Marianne Denicourt, François Vincentelli, Pierre-François Martin-Laval, Elise Larnicol, Jean-François Stévenin and Martin Lamotte.

Co-written by the director and Martine Fontaine, Burning Desire traces the misadventures of thirty-something couple Rose and Yann, who have been together for two years and want a child. Nothing seems more straightforward, when nature is willing. But when it isn’t willing, trying to build a family of three can surely risk destroying a couple’s relationship.

Burning Desire is produced by François Kraus and Denis Pineau-Valencienne for Les Films du Kiosque. Its €5.3m budget includes pre-sales from TPS Star and Ciné Cinéma.

The five-week shoot took place almost entirely in the Paris area, except for a few days in Haute-Savoie. The film will be released in French theatres by SND in 2011. International sales are still under negotiation.

Les Films du Kiosque (whose recent productions include Forgive Me [trailer], Intimate Enemies [trailer], The Actress’ Ball [trailer] and Bitter Victory, among others) has the following titles in post-production: Michaël Cohen’s Ca Commence par la Fin (“It Starts With the End”), starring Emmanuelle Béart; and Claude Lelouch’s Ces Amours Là (“Those Loves”, produced in collaboration with Les Films 13, in co-production with France 3 Cinéma and Studio 37).

(Translated from French)