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LOCARNO 2014 France

Three French directors in the running for the Golden Leopard

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- Lucie Borleteau, Paul Vecchiali and Eugène Green will be taking part in the international competition of the Swiss festival (6-16 August)

Three French directors in the running for the Golden Leopard
Fidelio, L'odyssée d'Alice by Lucie Borleteau

Standing out among the 17 feature films set to battle it out for the Golden Leopard at the 67th Locarno Film Festival (6-16 August 2014) are three movies directed by French filmmakers, which will be screened as world premieres. 

Thirty-three-year-old actress Lucie Borleteau will unveil her directorial feature debut, Fidelio, L'odyssée d'Alice [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lucie Borleteau
film profile
]
, starring Ariane Labed (winner of Best Actress at Venice in 2010 for Attenberg [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Athina Rachel Tsangari
film profile
]
), Melvil Poupaud (Laurence Anyways [+see also:
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film profile
]
; he has also just been shooting Tête baissée by Kamen Kalev) and Norwegian actor Anders Danielsen Lie (Oslo, August 31st [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joachim Trier
film profile
]
). The film recounts the misadventures of Alice, who is hired as a mechanic on board a cargo ship. She leaves her fiancé on dry land, but the boat’s captain happens to be her ex-boyfriend... Produced by Why Not Productions and Apsara Films for a budget of €2.01 million, the feature has benefitted from a co-production by Arte France Cinéma, a pre-purchase by Canal+ and an advance on receipts from the CNC.

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A legendary figure in French cinema, Paul Vecchiali (now 84) has directed almost 25 feature films since the 1960s. Within his filmography as a learned, lyrical and romantic craftsman/filmmaker, we could particularly highlight his impressive sequence shots in films such as Femmes femmes (showered with praise by Pasolini in 1974) and Once More (in competition at Venice in 1988). His new opus, White Nights on the Pier [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
was allegedly inspired by Dostoyevsky’s White Nights and shot with an IPod. The cast includes Astrid Adverbe, Pascal Cervo, Genevière Montaigu and the director himself. Production was handled by Dialektic, while international sales are managed by Shellac.

Sixty-seven-year-old Eugène Green will be in the competition at Locarno for the third time, having previously presented Memories (winner of the Special Jury Prize in 2007 – a film in three parts, co-directed with Pedro Costa and Harun Farocki) and The Portuguese Nun [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 (2009). An American by birth, but having resided in France since the 1960s, the filmmaker also won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film in 2001 for Every Night. He will be back at Locarno with his sixth feature, La Sapienza [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, which stars Belgian actor Fabrizio Rongione (Two Days, One Night [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
film profile
]
), Christelle Prot Landman, Ludovico Succio and Arinna Nastro. Produced by Mact Productions together with Italian outfit La Sarraz Pictures (which is also handling international sales), the film had a budget of €1.05 million and was backed by the CNC’s advance on receipts. Bodega Films will distribute the title in France.

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(Translated from French)

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