26/03/2019 - Having taken his first three first feature films to Locarno, Cannes and Venice, the filmmaker is now fine-tuning his latest opus, an MLD production with international sales managed by Shellac

Following film shoots in Ile-de-France and Brittany, Isadora’s Children [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Damien Manivel
film profile], the 4th feature film by the singular and very talented Damien Manivel, is now in post-production. After a number of successful short films (notably The Lady With The Dog, awarded the Prix Jean Vigo in 2011, and Un dimanche matin, which won the Discovery Prize during Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2012), the director switched to full-length works with A Young Poet [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (which received a Special Mention from the Filmmakers of the Present Jury at the 2014 Locarno Festival) before moving on to The Park [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (unveiled in Cannes in 2016 as part of the ACID programme), and The Night I Swam [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Damien Manivel, Kohei Igara…
film profile] (co-produced alongside Kohei Igarashi), which world premiered in the Horizons competition section of the Venice Film Festival in 2017, before participating in the San Sebastian Festival (in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section), among others.

Isadora's Children brings together a cast comprising Agathe Bonitzer (nominated Best Female Newcomer at the 2013 César Awards for A Bottle in the Gaza Sea [+see also:
trailer
film profile], and also at her best in Coming Home [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], and more recently in When Margaux Meets Margaux [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and in Blonde Animals [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maxime Matray, Alexia Walther
film profile]; she also plays a lead role in the series, Osmosis, two episodes of which have just been screened at the Séries Mania Festival ahead of the series’ Netflix launch on 29 March), Manon Carpentier and Marika Rizzi, as well as the American dancer and choreographer, Elsa Wolliaston (who has appeared on film in recent years in In Bed With Victoria [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Justine Triet
film profile] and Cléo and Paul [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]). 

Written by Damien Manivel and Julien Dieudonné, the story revolves around the solo composition, “Mother”, which was created by the legendary dancer Isadora Duncan following the death of her two children in April 1913. It sees a mother, in a moment of great tenderness, caressing and cradling her child for the very last time before finally letting him/her go. In 2018, four women encounter this dance piece: a dancer who tries to interpret the solo and finds herself deeply moved, a choreographer who prepares an adaptation of the piece, which will be danced by a teenager with Down’s syndrome, and an elderly lady who attends a performance of the solo alone and is subsequently moved to tears.

Produced by MLD Films (the filmmaker’s own firm), in co-production with the JeonJu Cinema Project and in association with Arte/Cofinova, Isadora's Children has received support from the Ile-de-France region. Cinematography comes courtesy of the young and promising newcomer, Noé Bach (Just Kids). Distribution in France and international sales will both be overseen by Shellac.

(Translated from French)