18/03/2008

The film division of Franco-German broadcaster Arte has decided to grant pre-sale and co-production support to new projects by young French director Mia Hansen-Love and Catalan filmmaker Marc Recha.

Hansen-Love was discovered last year at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight with All Is Forgiven [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: David Thion
interview: Mia Hansen-Löve
film profile] (see Focus), which won the 2007 Louis-Delluc Award for Best Debut Film and was nominated for the 2008 Cesar for Best Debut Feature. This summer, the director will shoot her second film: Le père de nos enfants (“The Father of our Children”).

Presented in January at Cinemart in Rotterdam, the project’s cast includes Louis-Do de Lencquesaing (who appeared in Nobuhiro Suwa’s A Perfect Couple [+see also:
trailer
film profile], and in films by Michael Haneke and Olivier Assayas) and Italian actress Chiara Caselli (who first came to attention in Gus van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and will soon be seen in Mr. Nobody by Belgian director Jaco van Dormael and in Il passato è una terra straniera [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Italian director Daniele Vicari).

Written by the 26 year-old director, the film recounts the final weeks in the life of a great French film producer and looks at how his closest relations come to terms with his tragic death. The story is directly inspired by the life of Humbert Balsan, whom Hansen-Love met one year prior to his suicide in 2005 and who profoundly changed her relationship with cinema.

Like All Is Forgiven, Le père de nos enfants is produced by David Thion for Les Films Pelléas.

Arte France Cinéma has also agreed to back C'est ici que je vis (“I Live Here”), the sixth feature by festival regular Marc Recha (Pau and his Brother in competition at Cannes 2001, Where is Madame Catherine? in the Un Certain Regard section in 2003, Tree of Cherries and August Days [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in competition at Locarno Film Festival in 1998 and 2006 respectively).

His new film centres on a dreamy young boy with a passion for songbirds, and is set in the industrial suburbs of Barcelona. The cast includes Eduardo Noriega (who starred in Where is Madame Catherine?) and Sergi Lopez.

French production is handled by Noodles Production and shooting is set to last from the end of April until the end of June.

In 2007, Arte France Cinéma pre-bought and co-produced 25 features for an overall investment of €7.44m. Selected titles include Marion Lainé’s Un cœur simple (French release on March 26); Karim Dridi’s Khamsa [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (set for release on June 18); and Louise Michel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Benoît Delépine and Gustav…
interview: Benoît Jaubert
film profile] by Gustave Kerven and Benoît Delepine (set for release on June 25).

Other films to have received backing include Lourdes by Austrian director Jessica Haussner, The Parlermo Shooting by German director Wim Wenders, Angling [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adrian Sitaru
film profile] by Romanian filmmaker Adrian Sitaru, Lyes Salem’s Mascarades, Bruno Dumont’s Hadewijch and Hannelore Cayre’s Commis d’office (“Court Appointed Lawyer”).

(Translated from French)