03/05/2022 - The agent is selling Thomas Salvador’s second film, selected in the Directors’ Fortnight, The Peace and Love Process, screening as a market premiere, and the series Letizia Battaglia

The final preparations are underway for the international sales team of Parisian firm Le Pacte (steered by Jean Labadie) ahead of the 75th Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film (running 17 - 25 May). And La Montagne [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Salvador
film profile] by Thomas Salvador is shining especially bright in the agent’s line-up, with a world premiere scheduled for 25 May within the Directors’ Fortnight.

Highly acclaimed for his original first feature film Vincent [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (gracing San Sebastián’s New Directors section in 2014), Thomas Salvador also stars in this latest opus of his, La Montagne (produced by Christmas in July), where he shares centre stage with Louise Bourgoin. Written by the filmmaker together with Naïla Guiguet, the story revolves around Parisian engineer Pierre who travels to the Alps with work. Bowled over by his natural surrounds, he camps high up in the mountains and leaves everyday life behind him. It’s here that he meets Léa, a chef at a high-altitude restaurant. Meanwhile, mysterious lights glimmer deep in the mountains...

Captained by Camille Neel, Le Pacte’s sales team will also be pinning their hopes on a market premiere of Ilan Klipper’s The Peace and Love Process [+see also:
trailer
film profile], as well as pursuing pre-sales on Thomas Lilti’s A Real Job [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Lilti
film profile], whose story is now common knowledge: Benjamin is a PhD student without scholarship support. Pressured by his parents and in need of money, he becomes a supply teacher in a middle school. Lacking both in training and experience, and faced with a public education system on the decline, he discovers just how taxing the job can be. But he hopes that his highly committed and supportive colleagues will help him to see the profession in a new light…

Market screenings are also on the agenda for Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai’s compelling documentary Rookies [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thierry Demaizière and Alba…
film profile] (currently touring cinemas, having opened the Berlinale’s Generation14 Plus line-up), as well as for Greek director Christos Massalas’ Broadway [+see also:
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film profile] (unveiled in the Rotterdam Festival’s Big Screen competition) and Giordano Gederlini’s On the Edge [+see also:
film review
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interview: Giordano Gederlini
film profile] (due for release in France on 22 June).

Likewise worth a mention is the series in post-production Letizia Battaglia (subtitled Shooting Life and Death in Palermo) by Italy’s Roberto Andò and starring Isabelle Ragonese in the role of the famous photographer who died only recently. Born in 1935 in post-war Palermo, from a very young age Letizia Battaglia aspired to freedom and independence. Held captive by her father at the age of 10, she married swiftly at 16 years of age in order to escape her abusive family but found herself newly imprisoned by a tyrannical husband who refused to let her continue her literature studies. Letizia escaped her husband when she hit thirty, spurred on by a yearning to write, and left to live in Milan with her two children. As a single mother, she provided for her family by working as a freelance reporter for various newspapers and, almost by accident, found herself with a camera between her hands… A 4 x 52-minute series produced by BiBi Film TV together with RAI Fiction and Le Pacte.

(Translated from French)