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CANNES 2017 Market / France

Bac Films aims for a bulls-eye at Cannes

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- The Parisian company’s international sales team will notably be selling Ava at Cannes, which is part of the Critics’ Week line-up

Bac Films aims for a bulls-eye at Cannes
Ava by Léa Mysius

The parallel sections at Cannes which have smiled on the international sales team at Bac Films in recent years (specifically with Love At First Fight [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Cailley
film profile
]
and Like Crazy [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Paolo Virzì
film profile
]
in Directors’ Fortnight in 2014 and 2016) could once again stand it in very good stead this year at the Film Market of the 70th Cannes Film Festival (being held from 17 to 28 May). Indeed, Mathieu Robinet and Gilles Sousa’s team will be selling a film that has been selected in competition in Critics’ Week and is in the running for the Caméra d'Or: Ava [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Léa Mysius
film profile
]
by Léa Mysius. Centering around a 13-year-old teenager who is on holiday by the sea when she learns she’s going to lose her sight sooner than expected, this debut French film has been described by Charles Tesson, the General Delegate of Critics’ Week, as "a beautiful, allegorical and lyrical film about the fact that parents hand down a world that’s getting darker and darker to their children and young adults."

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The line-up also features The Teacher [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Olivier Ayache Vidal, which will have its premiere at the market, and five films in post-production. Among these are English-language title The Leisure Seeker by Italian director Paolo Virzi, which has already been widely sold by Bac and is without a doubt aiming for a double victory at Venice and Toronto. Also on the cards for these two festivals are Land [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Iranian director Babak Jalali (produced by Italian company Asmara Films and French company The Cup of Tea, Dutch company Topkapi and Mexican outfit Piano Producciones - with Agnès Godard as Director of Photography), which plunges us into the heart of a family from the Prairie Wolf Indian Reservation in New Mexico, and into an atmosphere of alcohol addiction and violence which is fuelled by the news of the death in Afghanistan of the youngest of the three brothers.

The other titles in post-production being sold by Bac are Belgian-French feature Let the Corpses Tan) by duo Hélène Cattet - Bruno Forzani (see article), Irish zombie film The Third Wave by David Freyne (starring Canadian actress Ellen Page) and Una famiglia by Italian filmmaker Sebastiano Riso (who rose to prominence in Critics’ Week in 2014 with Darker Than Midnight [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and this time brought together a cast featuring Patrick Bruel and Micaela Ramazzotti playing a couple who don’t seem to know one another, but are actually hiding a very secret plan for the future that risks being revealed...).

Last but not least, worth mentioning is that on the French distribution side of things, Bac Films has purchased The Square [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile
]
by Swedish director Ruben Ostlund, which will have its world premiere in the official competition.

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(Translated from French)

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