Marais’ At Ellen's Age to vie for Golden Leopard
At the 63rd Locarno Film Festival (August 4-14), German films will have a relatively low-key presence.
The country is represented in competition by South African-born Swedish director Pia Marais’ second feature, At Ellen's Age [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. Developed at the Cannes Cinéfondation, the film follows on from her highly-acclaimed, Rotterdam Tiger Award-winning debut feature The Unpolished [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2007), which looked at the difficulties of a girl brought up by irresponsible hippie parents.
In her new film, Marais describes the upheaval in the life of an air hostess after she separates from her partner, in a series of events that lead her as far as Africa. Jeanne Balibar stars in the title role alongside Georg Friedrich (who has appeared in numerous films by renowned auteurs, including Detlev Buck, Michael Glawogger and Ulrich Seidl, and featured in The Unpolished) and Julia Hummer (Nina in Christian Petzold’s Ghosts).
At Ellen's Age also reunites the director with co-screenwriter Horst Markgraf, and producers Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel of Pandora Film. Once again, she also received backing (€780,000) from regional fund and Locarno regular NRW (North Rhine-Westphalia), for there were 30 days of shooting in the region (Cologne, Düsseldorf, Duisburg and Weeze), as well as work in South Africa and Frankfurt.
The film will be launched in Germany by Real Fiction at the start of next year. Sales are being handled by The Match Factory.
The Locarno competition is also hosting three German co-productions: Oleg Novkovic’s White White World (co-produced with Serbia and Sweden); Benedek Fliegauf’s Womb [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (co-produced with Hungary and France); and Bruce LaBruce’s LA Zombie (co-produced with France and the United States).
On the Piazza Grande, audiences will get the chance to discover German productions The Silence by Baran bo Odar and Rammbock by Marvin Kren; and two co-productions, including French director Benoît Jacquot’s Deep in the Woods [+see also:
trailer
film profile].
(Translated from French)
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
