25/07/2005

Shooting starts today in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais on Avida [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the second feature from the iconoclastic duo Gustave Kerven - Benoît Delépine. A revelation last year with their first film Aaltra, a European road-movie about two men in wheel- chairs, treated with a large dose of black humour and selected at the Rotterdam festival in 2004, the hyphenated filmmakers will work once more in black and white on a story they are keeping secret for the moment, stating simply that it is "neo-realist". But behind the secret there is no doubt a guarantee that Avida will deal with characters from a disadvantaged social background with the two directors and Éric Martin among the cast.

Influenced strongly by the silent cinema of Buster Keaton and Chaplin, and the Italian Monstres and also Monthy Python, Gustave Kerven and Benoît Delépine are also part of the team of the off-beat show "Groland" broadcast on Canal +. The pay-per-view channel has already pre-bought Avida which is produced by Mathieu Kassovitz and Benoît Joubert for their company MNP Entreprise. It will be the first feature they have produced, with a shoot of at least four weeks.

(Translated from French)