Diaphana: High hopes for Poirier’s La maison

by Fabien Lemercier

21/11/2006 - Shooting on the eighth feature by Manuel Poirier, La maison (lit. “The House”), starring Spain’s Sergi Lopez (who has been in all the French director’s features), Bérénice Béjo (OSS 117 [trailer]), Barbara Schulz and Bruno Salomone, wraps up tomorrow.

The film – the story of which is still under wraps and was shot in Paris and in the Perche (Normandy) – is set for a spring 2007 release.

Poirier – whose film Western won the Jury Prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and was a box office success – made his directorial debut in 1993 with Antonio’s Girlfriend, which was selected for the Berlin Film Festival Forum. Other films by the director include In the Country (1995), Marion (1997), Te quiero (2001), Women or Children First (2002) and Byways (2004).

Diaphana (which released In the Country, Western and Te quiero, also co-producing the latter) is the associate producer of La maison, which has received pre-sales and co-production financing from France 3 Cinéma.

The company, run by Michel Saint-Jean, has been the associate producer on three other films in recent years, namely Dominik Moll’s Lemming [trailer], Eric Caravaca’s The Passenger [trailer] and Denis Dercourt’s The Page Turner [trailer, film focus] (see Focus).

In terms of distribution, which is the core of its activity, Diaphana (a regular partner of the Dardenne brothers) makes significant contributions towards the circulation of quality European films, with releases in the past year including such titles as Palme d’Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley [trailer, film focus] by UK helmer Ken Loach (over 900,000 admissions in France, see Focus), French animated title Azur & Asmar [trailer] by Michel Ocelot (932,000 in three weeks), The Weakest is Always Right [trailer] by Belgium’s Lucas Belvaux, Armenia [trailer] by Robert Guédiguian, The Secret Life of Words [trailer, film focus] by Spanish director Isabel Coixet (see Focus) and Heimat 3 by Germany’s Edgar Reitz.

Upcoming titles slated for release are German documentary Into Great Silence [trailer, film focus] by Philip Gröning (December 20, see Focus), The Tiger's Tail by UK director John Boorman (first quarter 2007).

Still without release dates in 2007 are animated titles Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Peur(s) du noir, as well as Michel Spinosa’s Anna M. [trailer] by (see news).

(Translated from French)