06/06/2016 - Shooting for the director’s fourth film, a Move Movie production starring María Valverde and Gilles Lellouche, has just wrapped in Spain

Mélanie Laurent during filming

Today, following shoots in Oman, Paris and Saint-Nazaire, Mélanie Laurent wrapped principal photography for Plonger [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] in Pechón, in the Spanish Cantabria region. The film is the fourth feature by the director, following Les Adoptés [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (which earned Denis Ménochet the 2012 Lumière Award for Most Promising Actor in 2012), Breathe [+see also:
trailer
interview: Lou de Laâge
film profile] (which received two nominations for the 2015 César Award for Most Promising Actress, for Lou de Laâge and Joséphine Japy) and the documentary Tomorrow (she co-directed the film with Cyril Dion, which went on to win the César Award for Best Documentary Film in 2016 and registered 1.04 million admissions in France). At the top of this new opus’ billing shine Spanish actress María Valverde (winner of the 2004 Goya Award for Best New Actress for her role in The Weakness of the Bolshevik, who has also appeared in films such as Melissa P., King of the Hill and at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Asif Kapadia’s Ali and Nino [+see also:
trailer
interview: María Valverde
film profile]) and French actor Gilles Lellouche (2011 César nominee for Best Supporting Actor in Little White Lies [+see also:
trailer
film profile], at the top of his game in films such as Thérèse Desqueyroux [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], The Connection [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and The Clearstream Affair [+see also:
trailer
film profile]). 

Based loosely on Christophe Ono-Di-Biot’s novel of the same name, the film’s screenplay, co-written by Mélanie Larent, Julien Lambroschini, Chris Deslandes and Charlotte Farcet, recounts César and Paz’s love affair – an explosive partnership. Paz and César love each other, but they are quickly moving in very different directions. Paz, a Spanish photographer, yearns for more life experiences and to travel, while César, a former senior war correspondent, wants to remove himself from the chaos of the world. Paz is pregnant, and this perspective on life distresses and suffocates her. She seems to distance herself from César a little more every day, eventually leaving him and their child during the night, without any real explanation. According to her, she is leaving to come back better, in control of her fear and anxieties. Her trip takes her to the Omani coast where she meets Marin, who introduces her to the world of scuba diving, the ultimate experience of silence and the deep sea. One day César receives a message from the local authorities: an unidentified body has been found on the beach. Could it be Paz? Devastated, César goes on one last trip to look for her, following in her last-known footsteps, trying to solve the mystery surrounding her disappearance in an attempt to finally understand her…

Produced by Bruno Lévy for Move Movie (which has produced all of Mélanie Laurent’s films), Plonger is co-produced by France 2 Cinéma and Cinéfrance. Rights to the film have been bought in advance by OCS and it will distributed by Mars Distribution.

(Translated from French)