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BERLINALE 2011 France

E-Love and Free Hands selected in Forum

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Standing out among the 45 films selected in the Forum section at the 61st Berlinale (February 10-20, 2011) are two French-produced narrative titles: Anne Villacèque’s E-Love and Brigitte Sy’s Free Hands [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
.

Produced by Agat Films & Cie and co-produced by Arte France, E-Love stars Anne Consigny (Rapt [+see also:
trailer
interview: Lucas Belvaux
film profile
]
). Other cast members include Antoine Chappey, Carole Franck, Alain Libolt, Serge Renko, Jacky Ido and Maher Kamoun.

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Co-written by the director (in competition at Locarno in 2005 with her previous film, Riviera [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
) and Sophie Fillières, based on Dominique Baqué’s book of the same name, the film centres on Paule, a woman approaching 50. She gets dumped by her husband for a 28-year-old named Capucine, refuses once more the advances of a teacher colleague in corduroy trousers, joins a dating website, makes love with complete strangers, finally meets a man she really likes who then takes her to a group sex club, faints in the metro, forgets your own birthday, has nightmares about diving into an empty pool, cries at François Truffaut’s The Soft Skin, running out of Kleenex… Well, these things happen. E-Love is sold internationally by Europe Image International.

The Berlinale Forum will also screen actress Sy’s debut directorial feature Free Hands, starring Ronit Elkabetz, Carlo Brandt and Noémie Lvovsky. Produced by Mezzanine Films , the movie (see news) centres on the passionate love affair between a female film director working in a prison and an inmate. Released to critical acclaim in France last June, the feature is sold by German company Films Boutique.

Also in the Forum line-up are Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd’s French/Belgian documentary Territoire Perdu (“Lost Territory”) and five minority French co-productions: Bujar Alimani’s Amnesty (Albania/Greece/France); Jan Krüger’s Looking for Simon (Germany/France); Marie Losier’s The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (USA/France); Khalo Matabane’s State of Violence (South Africa/France); and Djo Tunda Wa Munga’s Viva Riva! (Democratic Republic of Congo/France/Belgium).

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(Translated from French)

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