Béart’s final days in Ma Compagne de Nuit

by Fabien Lemercier

29/09/2009 - Having kicked off in mid-August, the shoot for Isabelle Brocard and Hélène Laurent’s debut feature, Ma Compagne de Nuit (“My Night Companion”), is entering its final leg and will wrap up next week.

The cast includes Emmanuelle Béart (to be seen in 2010 in Renaud Bertrand’s Just the Three of Us - see news), Shooting Star 2009 Hafsia Herzi (who starred in The Secret of the Grain [trailer] and this summer shot Jimmy Rivière), Laurent Grévill and Bruno Todeschini.

Co-written by the directors, Ma Compagne de Nuit centres on Julia, a seemingly fulfilled architect (Béart), who decides to employ a home-help (Herzi). But the young girl soon realises that Julia is suffering from terminal cancer and needs company in her final days.

A deep and powerful bond gradually unites the two women, who share these final moments of life.

Produced by Edouard Mauriat for Mille et une productions, Ma Compagne de Nuit was selected for the latest Emergence summer school. It also obtained a €500,000 advance on receipts from the National Film Centre (CNC) and was pre-bought by Cinéma Séries.

French distribution and international sales will be managed by SND.

In post-production, Mille et une productions has Mehdi Ben Attia’s The String, featuring Claudia Cardinale (to be released by Pyramide Distribution on April 7, 2010); and Myriam Aziza’s La Robe du Soir (“The Evening Dress”, to be launched theatrically by Zelig Films Distribution).

The company will also launch production on Daniel Sicard’s debut feature Drift Away. Backed by the CNC’s advances on receipts committee and the Brittany region, the film stars Laetitia Spigarelli, Laurent Lacotte, Thomas Blanchard and Manuel Vallade.

Drift Away, which will start shooting in November-December, retraces the misfortunes of a woman in her twenties who ends up living alone in an apartment on a Paris housing estate. Scarred by deep emotional wounds and afraid to face the future, she doesn’t go out, sleeps by day and seeks escape in books by night.

To meet her financial needs, she decides to share her apartment with a young bank executive, who has recently arrived from the provinces. Initially distant, these two rather lost and lonely individuals gradually mellow towards each other.

(Translated from French)