Kiarostami’s The End is jewel in MK2’s line-up at AFM

by Fabien Lemercier

04/11/2011 - This week, shooting started in Japan on the new film by Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami (pictured), The End, which is one of the jewels in MK2 International’s line-up at the American Film Market (AFM) which is currently taking place in Santa Monica.

After Certified Copy [trailer] (Best Actress Award at Cannes in 2010), Kiarostami will this time explore the encounter between a young, pretty student who sells her charms to fund her studies (played by Japanese TV star Rin Takanashi) and an unusual client: an old, very learned academic (Tadashi Okuno) who shows greats kindness towards her. Produced by MK2 with Japanese company Eurospace, the film will have an eight-week shoot between Yokohama and Tokyo.

At the AFM, MK2 is also selling three enticing titles in post-production, on which the French company handled production: Brazilian director Walter Salles’s eagerly-awaited On the Road; French helmer Olivier Assayas’s Something in the Air (see news), starring Lola Créton (Goodbye First Love [trailer, film focus]); and Laurence Anyways by Canada’s Xavier Dolan (starring Melvil Poupaud and Nathalie Baye).

Dorothée Pfistner’s team, who are also hoping for success with Belgian director Jonathan Zaccaï’s Play It Like Godard (see news), will kick off sales at the AFM for Marion Lainé’s A Monkey On My Shoulder (see news), which has just started shooting with Juliette Binoche and Edgar Ramírez.

Among the completed films in the line-up are Martin Sulik’s Gypsy, which won multiple awards at Karlovy Vary and is Slovakia’s entry in the race for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (see review); Oliver Hermanus’s Beauty [trailer], which is representing South Africa in the race for the famous statuette (see review); directorial trio Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel and Bruno Romy’s The Fairy [trailer, film focus]; and Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s Smugglers’ Songs [trailer] (unveiled in competition at Locarno – see news).

(Translated from French)