04/02/2016 - Mohamed Ben Attia’s film, which is in the running for the Golden Bear, stands out on the new Paris-based international sales agent’s slate

Hedi by Mohamed Ben Attia

After it announced its founding last October, Luxbox, the new Paris-based international sales agent, will get stuck straight into the action at the European Film Market of the 66th Berlin Film Festival (11-21 February 2016) with a trump card on its line-up: Hedi [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Mohamed Ben Attia. Produced by Tunisia (Nomadis Images) and co-produced by Belgium (Les Films du Fleuve, the Dardenne brothers’ company) and France (Tanit Films), this feature debut will be unveiled in competition in the German capital on Thursday 12 February. Written by the director, the lead character in the story is a young man whose life seems to be mapped out entirely by those closest to him, particularly his mother, who has decided to marry him off and has chosen his future wife, with the wedding planned for the following week. But when his boss sends him to the seaside on a business trip, Hedi meets a tour guide whom he falls head over heels in love with...

Luxbox can boast another title from its slate in the Berlin showcase with the Mexican-Polish co-production Pan-American Machinery [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Joaquín del Paso, which will have its world premiere in the Forum. With this movie, the Mexican filmmaker, a graduate of the Lodz Film School, has made his feature debut, and he also produced it, via the Amondo Films collective. The plot is set in a factory in Mexico, just before the weekend. After finding the body of their beloved boss in the back of a warehouse, the employees discover that the business has gone bust. Upset, anxious and saddened, with no job prospects elsewhere, nor any chance of a company-funded pension, they decide to hide the body and shut themselves away in the factory to try and come up with an unlikely solution (the screenplay was written by the director together with the UK’s Lucy Pawlak). Interestingly, the DoP was Swedish cinematographer Fredrik Olsson.

Headed by Fiorella Moretti (formerly of Mantarraya Producciones and NDM) and Hedi Zardi (who has worked at Fortissimo, among other companies), Luxbox is also involved in two forthcoming co-productions: From the Balcony by Norway’s Ole Giæver and Where Life Is Born by Mexican director Carlos Reygadas.

(Translated from French)