BERLINALE 2011 Market / France
SND pins hopes on Service Entrance
Described as a "feel-good movie", Philippe Le Guay’s Service Entrance [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is enjoying a positive buzz among distributors who recently discovered it at the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris. Standing out in the line-up of French international seller SND (part of the M6 group), the film has been selected in the Berlinale Special programme at the 61st Berlin Film Festival (February 10-20) and will probably be a surprise success at the European Film Market.
Service Entrance stars Fabrice Luchini, Sandrine Kiberlain, Argentina’s Natalia Verbeke and Spanish actresses Carmen Maura and Lola Dueñas. Co-scripted by the director and Jérôme Tonnerre, it is set in Paris in the 1960s.
A meticulous stockbroker and uptight family man discovers that a merry band of Spanish housemaids live on the sixth floor of his bourgeois apartment block. Feeling moved by these lively women, he lets himself go and enjoys tasting life’s simple pleasures for the first time. But can you really change lives at 45?
Produced by Vendôme Productions, Service Entrance was co-produced by France 2 Cinéma, pre-bought by Canal + and CinéCinéma, and backed by Sofica Banque Postale, Cofinova and Uni Etoile. SND, who also co-produced the film, will launch it in French theatres on February 16.
Also heading SND’s Berlin line-up are 3D animated project Asterix: The Land of Gods (in pre-production – M6 Studio in association with MacGuff) and several new titles. These include, in production, Alain Courtès’s English-language horror film The Incident (WY Productions in collaboration with Artémis Production); and two titles in post-production: Italian director Marina Spada’s Metaphysics for Monkeys and Pierre Pineau’s On Air (featuring Karin Viard as a star radio presenter and Nicolas Duvauchelle).
Other highlights are Pascal Laugier’s English-language title The Tall Man, starring Jessica Biel, and Livide by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (see news), which will both be sold on the basis of promo-reels; and two films to be shown as market screenings: Italian director Massimo Coppola’s Afraid of the Dark [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Olivier Abbou’s horror thriller Territories.
(Translated from French)
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