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PRODUCTION France / Hungary / Portugal

Bálint Kenyeres and João Salaviza for Les Films de L'après-midi

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- François d'Artemare's Parisian company is involved in the first features by two young promising European directors

Bálint Kenyeres and João Salaviza for Les Films de L'après-midi
Bálint Kenyeres

The first, Bálint Kenyeres, is Hungarian and has won many awards with his shorts Closing Time (unveiled in Venice), Before Dawn (Prize of the Jury at Sundance and in competition in Cannes in 2005) and The History of Aviation (Directors’ Fortnight 2009). The second, João Salaviza, is Portuguese and was noticed when he won both the Palme d'Or for Best Short in Cannes with Arena in 2009 and the Golden Bear in the same category in Berlin in 2012 with Rafa. Producer François d'Artemare chose to accompany these two very promising filmmakers for their highly anticipated entry into the world of feature length movies.

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Les Films de L'après-midi are indeed coproducing Hier, the first feature by Bálint Kenyeres, selected at the Atelier de la Cinéfondation of the Cannes Film Festival 2013 and currently in pre-production after having been stuck for a long time in the Magyar cinematographic industry crisis. The feature, whose cast will include Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist (the lead in the Millenium trilogy), Richard Bohringer,Isaac de Bankolé and Maurice Benichou, will tell the story of the mishaps of the owner of a prosperous world-class construction company. Very expensive issues on a site in North Africa force him to return to a country where he is faced with childhood memories he had carefully buried in the depths of his mind. Meetings in ministries, disinformation, reappearance of a past love who had mysteriously vanished, enquiry in the local underground: he will progressively delve into a labyrinth where past and present overlap.

François d'Artemare is also already involved in the director’s next project, which was presented last week at the TorinoFilmLab: The Good Soldier. Written by Bálint Kenyeres and Éva Zabezsinszkij, the screenplay focuses on a man under the orders of a businesswoman who is charged with emptying, by any imaginable means, old buildings of Budapest of their inhabitants before they are demolished. This is until he meets a young widow, who is a music teacher, and her six-year-old son...    

As for Portugal, the eight weeks of filming are about to end for Mountain by João Salaviza which François d'Artemare produces through his local company Filmes do Tejo and coproduces with Les Films de L'après-midi. The screenplay focuses on a teenager who witnesses, helpless, under the Lisbon sun, the last moments in the life of his grandfather, a scene that will inevitably make him enter the world of adulthood... The international sales of this feature that will be ready next spring are handled by Pyramide.

As a reminder, Les Films de l'après-midi’s filmography notably includes two features by Manoel de Oliveira (Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and The Strange Case of Angelica [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
) and two by Aida Begic (Snow [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and Children of Sarajevo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aida Begić
film profile
]
).

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(Translated from French)

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