RELEASES France
Fondivina returns east with The Mole
by Fabien Lemercier
12/09/2012 - While the main attraction among new films out in French cinemas this Wednesday is definitely Noémie Lvovsky’s excellent auteur comedy Camille Rewinds [trailer], a film that was discovered at this year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight (read the review) and has now been released by Gaumont in 415 cinemas, the critics have also praised Rafael Lewandowski’s The Mole [trailer] (read more), a Polish-French co-production released by Fondivina Distribution in 15 cinemas.
Based in Lyon and headed by Marc Guidoni, Fondivina started off in production before launching into distribution last April with Polish filmmaker Jacek Borcuch’s All That I Love [trailer].
"As for The Mole, I had known about the project since its beginnings and meeting Rafael Lewandowski in Warsaw in 2007,” Marc Guidoni told Cineuropa. “Last spring, the film’s French co-producer, Mark Edwards (Kuiv Productions), asked me if if I would be interested in distributing it. And several cinemas fell in love with it. On December 12, I am releasing Romanian director Anca Damian’s Crulic - The Path to Beyond [trailer, film focus], after buying it from Wide Management. We are going to make a French version of this film, that premiered in Locarno and won the Crystal at the Annecy Film Festival 2012, with the voices of Sandrine Bonnaire and Vlad Ivanov." But Guidoni remains cautious: "I don’t intend to release more than three to four films a year. We are in a tiny economy, on a knife edge, because even if a distributor does a good job and finds good cinemas, the real test is with the public."
Three other French films also stand out among the 14 new releases this week: Stéphane Cazes’s Ombline [trailer] (with Mélanie Thierry - article - Zed has released 40 copies), Alexandre Arcady’s Ce que le jour doit à la nuit [trailer, festival scope] (lit. “What the day owes the night” - Wild Bunch Distribution in 252 cinemas) and Béatrice Pollet’s Frog Day [trailer] (10 copies by Jour2Fête). Two American productions by French directors are also out: Michel Gondry’s The We and the I (Mars Distribution) and Lisa Azuelos’s LOL USA (a remake of her successful 2009 film - Pathé Films).
Finally come several documentaries: French director Clarisse Hahn’s Kurdish Lover (distribution: Nour Films), French filmmaker Yolande Zauberman’s Would you have sex with an Arab ? (selected for Venice in 2011 in the Orizzonti section - five copies released by Urban Distribution), British filmmaker Rupert Murray’s The End of the Line (Lug Cinéma), and Spanish filmmaker Emilio Ruiz Barrachina’s Morente (Floris Films).
(Translated from French)
