30/08/2006

The 21st Critics’ Week of the Venice International Film festival opens today with Premonition [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the debut French feature by actor Jean-Pierre Darroussin.

At 52, the actor has moved behind the camera like several of his contemporaries (Guillaume Canet, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) to make a screen adaptation of a novel by Emmanuel Bove (1898-1945), a writer brought to fame by Colette, who then disappeared without a trace after the war, before resparking interest in France, Italy and, in particular, Germany thanks to Peter Handke and Wim Wenders.

Starring the director and co-screenwriter Valérie Stroh alongside Amandine Janin, Anne Canovas, Nathalie Richard and Hippolyte Girardot, Premonition tells of the existentialist trials and tribulations of Charles Benesteau, who decides to turn his back on the grande bourgeoisie, leaving his wife, family and friends to go an live in anonymous solitude in a working class area of Paris.

A sort of anti-hero dreaming of becoming a new man, he thinks he is immersing himself in real values among the poor, but instead discovers a world filled with hate and revenge, as his new community treats him with suspicion, finding him all too polite to be honest.

Having starred in over 70 films, Darroussin has worked with Robert Guédiguian on a dozen occasions, as well as Cédric Kahn (Red Lights), Jean-Pierre Jeunet (A Very Long Engagement), Bertrand Blier, Danièle Thompson, Coline Serreau and Jeanne Labrune. Nominated for a Best Actor César in 1999 for Le Poulpe (lit. “The Octopus”) by Guillaume Nicloux, he won Best Supporting Actor – a category that won him two further nominations – in 1997 for Cédric Klapisch’s Family Resemblances.

He will be on the big screen in 2007 with Dialogue avec mon jardinier (lit. “Conversations With My Gardener”), a film by Jean Becker starring Daniel Auteuil (see article); J'attends quelqu'un (lit. “I Am Waiting For Someone”) by Jérôme Bonnell (see news); and Martin Valente’s Fragile(s).

Produced by Agat Films & Cie, the €2.8m Premonition received €400,000 in co-production and pre-sales financing from France 2 Cinéma, advances in receipts of €420,000, as well as pre-sales from Canal + and Ciné Cinéma.

It opens on October 4 through Bac Films, who are also handling world sales.

(Translated from French)