Gaumont to start pre-sales for The Conquest

by Fabien Lemercier

03/02/2011 - Pre-sales will officially get underway at the European Film Market at the 61st Berlin Film Festival (February 10-20, 2011) for Xavier Durringer’s The Conquest. Currently in post-production, the film is well-placed in Gaumont’s line-up. It stars Denis Podalydès as Nicolas Sarkozy during his electoral campaign for the French presidential elections in 2007, a journey shown to be dominated by ambition, sacrifice and paranoia.

The team headed by Cécile Gaget (assisted mainly by Johann Comte) is also hoping for success with the world premieres of Julie Gavras’s romantic comedy Late Bloomers [trailer] (selected in the Berlinale Special programme, see news); and Régis Wargnier’s The Straight Line (see news), which will be unveiled at the market.

Promo-reels will also be shown for the much-awaited A Gang Story (see news) by Olivier Marchal (Department 36, MR 73); and for A Happy Event (see news) by Rémi Bezançon (The First Day of the Rest of Your Life [trailer]), featuring Louise Bourgoin and Pio Marmaï.

Also on Gaumont’s slate are Sylvain Fusée’s quirky swashbuckler Philibert (in post-production – see news); and Eric Tolédano and Olivier Nakache’s comedy Untouchable, starring François Cluzet (in production).

Finally, there will be market screenings of Fred Cavayé’s thriller Point Blank (almost 950,000 admissions in France); Luc Vinciguerra’s animated film Santa’s Apprentice (over 600,000 admissions in France); Luc Guillard’s Jo’s Boy (heading for 1m admissions in France); and Anne Depétrini’s comedy Bacon on the Side.

(Translated from French)