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FUNDING France

Arte France Cinéma supports The Swallows of Kabul

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- The animated film by Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbé-Mevellec will be co-produced by the French-German channel, as will three documentaries

Arte France Cinéma supports The Swallows of Kabul
The Swallows of Kabul by Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbé-Mevellec

Arte France Cinéma (headed up by Olivier Père), which supports one animated feature per year by committing to co-produce and pre-purchase it, has this year chosen to throw its weight behind The Swallows of Kabul [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Zabou Breitman, Eléa Gobbe-…
film profile
]
by Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbé-Mevellec. This comes in the wake of the support it provided to Michel Ocelot’s Dilili in Paris [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
and Florence Miailhe’s The Crossing [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
in the two previous years.

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Currently in production, the feature is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Yasmina Khadra, which is set in 1998 in a Taliban-occupied Kabul in ruins. Written by Sébastien Tavel, Patricia Mortagne and Zabou Breitman, the story revolves around Atiq and Mussarat, who have been married for years and who barely speak to each other any more. He can’t stand his life as a prison warden in a women’s jail, while she is dying, suffering from an incurable disease. As for youngsters Mohsen and Zunaira, they are in love and believe in the future, despite all the violence and poverty. But a foolish act by Mohsen tips them over into tragedy… This production being staged by Reginald de Guillebon for French outfit Les Armateurs has secured co-productions from France’s KNM and Mystéo, Switzerland’s Close-Up Films and RTS, and Luxembourg’s Mélusine Productions. The French distribution will be handled in 2019 by Memento, while the international sales have been entrusted to Celluloid Dreams.

Arte France Cinéma (in conjunction with Arte France’s Society and Culture department) has also got on board three documentary projects: Happiness, les horizons perdus by Thomas Balmès (staged by France’s TBC Productions with Germany’s Zero One and US firm Participant Media), The State Against Nelson Mandela and the Others [+see also:
trailer
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by Nicolas Champeaux and Gilles Porte (produced by Rouge International and UFO Production, with the involvement of the National Audiovisual Institute), and The Cordillera of Dreams [+see also:
film review
trailer
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]
by Patricio Guzmán.

Interestingly, six of Arte’s co-productions have been nominated for the upcoming Oscars (The Square [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile
]
, Loveless [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andrey Zvyagintsev
film profile
]
and A Fantastic Woman [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
in the Best Foreign-language Film category, Last Men in Aleppo [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
and Faces Places [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
for Best Documentary, and Negative Space for Best Animated Short Film).

As a reminder, Arte France Cinéma is backing the forthcoming films by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Jia Zhangke, Alice Rohrwacher, Mia Hansen-Love, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Diao Yi’nan, Olivier Assayas, Pawel Pawlikowski, Philippe Faucon, Leos Carax, Corneliu Porumboiu, Nadav Lapid, André Téchiné, Gaspar Noé, Cédric Kahn, Claire Burger, Mati Diop, Arthur Harari, Mikhaël Hers, Emmanuel Mouret, Gustave Kervern and Benoît Delépine, Quentin Dupieux, Christophe Honoré, Benoît Jacquot, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmèche, Mohamed Ben Attia, Nicolas Pariser, Jean-Bernard Marlin, Jayro Bustamante, Hafsia Herzi, Dror Moreh, and duos Caroline Poggi - Jonathan Vinel, Rana Kazkaz - Anas Khalaf and Felipe Barbosa - Clara Linhart.

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(Translated from French)

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