Une Estonienne à Paris gets advance on receipts

by Fabien Lemercier

10/01/2011 - Four debut feature film screenplays were selected at the last 2010 session of the advance on receipts committee of the National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC). Among them is Ilmar Raag’s A Lady in Paris, which will start shooting on February 28 with a cast including Jeanne Moreau and Laine Mägi.

Co-written by the director (who attracted much attention at international festivals in 2007 with TV drama The Class), Agnès Feuvre and Lise Macheboeuf, the screenplay traces the encounter between two women. One is 80 and wants to die while the other, at 50, has lost all expectations. Yet the one most in love with life is not the one we think.

A 70% French production via TS Productions (Miléna Poylo and Gilles Sacuto), A Lady in is 20% co-produced by Estonia (Amrion Oü – Riina Sildos) and 10% by Belgium (La Parti Production – Philippe Kauffmann). The film, whose shoot will last until April 22 with 35 days in France and three in Estonia, has been pre-bought by Canal + and CinéCinéma. French distribution and international sales are still under negotiation.

This project is added to the original and high-quality slate developed by TS Productions, after titles including Séraphine [trailer], Ordinary People [trailer, film focus], The Grocer’s Son [trailer] and Mademoiselle Chambon [trailer], as well as Denis Villeneuve’s Scorched [trailer], which will be released in French theatres on Wednesday and was minority co-produced by the Paris-based company.

The CNC also approved the pledge of an advance on receipts for two French/Belgian co-productions: Mobil Home by François Pirot (screenwriter on Private Property [trailer] and Private Lessons [trailer, film focus]), to be produced by Tarantula and co-produced by Umedia; and Alice Winocour’s Augustine (produced by Dharamsala and co-produced by Versus Production), which will start shooting next summer and star Benoît Poelvoorde.

Finally, the pledge of an advance on receipts was made to Jean-Loïk Portron and Gabriella Kessler’s documentary project Braddock America (produced by Program 33).

(Translated from French)