01/12/2011

Unifrance, the agency that promotes French cinema internationally, will for the first time hold an event in Southeast Asia, from December 7-13, as part of the Singapore French Film Festival.

Sixteen films will be presented, including seven that have already been bought by local distributors: Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michel Hazanavicius
film profile], Fred Cavayé’s Point Blank [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s Sarah’s Key [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (pictured), Rémi Bezançon’s A Happy Event [+see also:
trailer
interview: Rémi Bezançon
film profile], Daniel Auteuil’s The Well Digger’s Daughter [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Stéphane Rybojad’s Special Forces [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Dominik Moll’s The Monk [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. Among the unreleased titles are Pierre Schoeller’s The Minister [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pierre Schoeller
film profile] and Christophe Honoré’s Beloved [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christophe Honoré
film profile].

The event will also include a film market with about ten French international sales companies and distributors from Singapore, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Conquering new markets doesn’t prevent Unifrance from continuing to consolidate its position on territories where French cinema is already well established. Russia is therefore on the agenda with the French Cinema Today Festival, which will run from December 7-9 in Moscow, then from December 10-12 in Kazan. There are six films in the line-up, including A Gang Story [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Olivier Marchal (who will be there in attendance), My Little Princess [+see also:
trailer
interview: Anamaria Vartolomei
film profile] by Eva Ionesco and Declaration of War [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Valérie Donzelli.

Finally, yesterday marked the close of the 14th French Film Festival in the Czech Republic, which screened nine films in avant-premiere, including Bertrand Bonello’s House of Tolerance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adèle Haenel
film profile] and Christophe Honoré’s Beloved, with the two directors in attendance. Nine other titles were shown in a competition that included Céline Sciamma’s Tomboy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Céline Sciamma
film profile], Bouli Lanners’s The Giants [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: Bouli Lanners
film profile] and Xavier Durringer’s The Conquest [+see also:
trailer
film profile], while Mia Hansen-Love’s three feature films (including her latest, Goodbye First Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mia Hansen-Love
film profile]) had special screenings, as did Declaration of War. The festival ran for one week in 14 cinemas in eight Czech cities (Prague, Brno, Ceske Budejovice, Hradec Kralove, Olomouc, Ostrava, Pardubice and Pizen).

(Translated from French)