Coming Home: a Golden Bear contender for Pyramide

by Fabien Lemercier

23/01/2012 - The European Film Market looks set to be successful for French international seller Pyramide with Frédéric Videau’s Coming Home (pictured, see news) in its line-up. The film has joined the already packed contingent (see news) of French productions and co-productions vying for the Golden Bear at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival(February 9-19, 2012).

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Produced by Les Films Hatari, the second feature by the director (discovered in Venice Critics’ Week 2003 with Variété Française) is a "real tour de force" according to Eric Lagesse (Pyramide): "The story could be terribly dark and claustrophobic, but it’s a luminous, light and intelligent film which focuses on the rebuilding of a young girl’s life after her abduction and confinement, and her relationship with the world. Agathe Bonitzer is extraordinary. In a way, the film reminds me of François Truffaut’s The Wild Child."

Lagesse and Yoann Ubermulhin’s team will also prepare the future at Berlin with their sights set on the Croisette, for Pyramide’s line-up includes seven titles that will be ready in May for Cannes. Standing out among them are Ilmar Raag’s A Lady in Paris (see news), Catherine Corsini’s 3 Worlds (see news) and Portuguese centenarian maestro Manoel de Oliveira’s Gebo and the Shadow (see news).

Two second features by up-and-coming French directors will also be pre-sold: Little Lion by Samuel Collardey (see news), who won the Venice Critics’ Week Award and the Louis-Delluc Prize for Best Debut Film in 2008 with The Apprentice [trailer]; and Anna Novion’s On a Trip, which once again stars Jean-Pierre Darroussin as did her previous film Grown Ups [trailer] (unveiled in Cannes Critics’ Week 2008). Two debut features complete the list of films in post-production in the line-up: Au Galop by Louis-Do de Lencquesaing (see news) and Friends From France by directorial duo Anne Weil and Philippe Kotlarski (see news). Finally, it should be noted that the French company is pre-selling Argentine director Lucia Puenzo’s Wakolda, currently in pre-production, and that Jean-Pierre Denis’s Here Below (see news) will be screened at the Berlin market.

(Translated from French)