09/06/2011

Benoît Poelvoorde and Albert Dupontel will star in Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern’s fifth feature: Le Grand Soir (“The Big Night”), which will start shooting on July 3. The cast will also include the couple comprising singer Brigitte Fontaine and composer Areski Belkacem, with appearances by Yolande Moreau, Bouli Lanners and Barbet Schroeder, among others.

With their social themes, black humour and anarcho-libertarian spirit, Délépine and Kervern have continued to rise with Aaltra (in competition at Rotterdam in 2004), Avida [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (out of competition at Cannes in 2006), Louise-Michel (Best Screenplay in 2008 at San Sebastian and Special Jury Prize in 2009 at Sundance) and Mammuth [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gustave Kervern, Benoî…
film profile] (in competition at the Berlinale 2010 – 865,000 admissions in France). Poelvoorde, who played the lead role in Aaltra, has appeared in all the duo’s films except Avida which did, however, feature Dupontel, who also had a small role in Louise-Michel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Benoît Delépine and Gustav…
interview: Benoît Jaubert
film profile].

Scripted by the two directors, Le Grand Soir opens in a provincial retail park where an old couple (Fontaine and Belkacem) run a restaurant and invite round their two forty-something sons who have nothing in common any more: Jean-Pierre (Dupontel), a salesman in a nearby bedding shop and Not (Poelvoorde), "the oldest punk-with-dogs in Europe".

Soon afterwards, due to a job loss and stormy divorce, Jean-Pierre is plunged into a hitherto unknown way of life. He starts to "bum around" with his brother, leading to a series of disasters.

The parents thus decide to drive their sons apart by revealing that Not’s real father is a rich vineyard owner. Thus begins an adventure during which the two brothers will meet some colourful characters and arrive at their crowning moment – their "big night" – under the clashing neon lights of the retail park.

Produced, like Mammuth, by GMT Productions, Le Grand Soir has received a pre-acquisition from Canal + and backing from the Aquitaine and Poitou-Charentes regions. A Belgian co-production agreement is also apparently under negotiation.

Shooting will take place until August 1 in Angoulême and Bordeaux. French distribution and international sales are expected to be handled by the directors’ usual partners: Ad Vitam and Funny Balloons.

(Translated from French)