17/10/2006

The focus is on Europe for co-production and pre-sales support from Arte France Cinéma, with the broadcaster’s selection committee choice of new projects by Polish director Andrzej Wajda, Germany’s Volker Schlöndorff and French writer Michel Houellebecq.

After several screen adaptations of his work – Whatever (Extension du domaine de la lutte) by Philippe Harel in 1999 and Atomised [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Franka Potente & Moritz Ble…
interview: Oskar Roehler
film profile] by Germany’s Oskar Roehler last year (see Focus) – novelist Houellebecq will make his directorial debut with the feature La possibilité d’une île, a Mandarin Cinéma film co-produced by GTM, which is set to begin shooting in April 2007 in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.

An adaptation of the writer’s eponymous bestseller, the film tells the story of a humorist (casting for whom is underway) who meets a sect that promises immortality to its members through cloning.

Arte France Cinéma are also to provide support to Katyn by Andrzej Wajda (see news, June 17), co-produced by Les Films du Losange. Scripted by Andrzej Mularczyk, the film depicts the massacres of Katyn (15,000-20,000 Polish officers were killed in 1939 during the German occupation) – which almost cost the life of the director’s father – as well as the post-war period in Poland. Filming is currently underway in Krakow, with the feature set for release in autumn 2007.

Established in 2004, French outfit Fly Times Pictures, run by Régis Ghezelbash, has received support from the cinema arm of the French-German channel for Ulzhan by Volker Schlöndorff. Co-produced by Volksfilm and Kazakhfilms National Company, the feature – based on a screenplay by Jean-Claude Carrière – retraces a Frenchman’s (Philippe Torreton) long journey across the Mongolian steppes on the border with Kazakhstan until an unexpected encounter with Ulzhan, which changes his course and his life.

The film will be distributed in France and sold internationally by Rezo Films. The latest 2006 selection by Arte France Cinéma also includes Huacho by Chile’s Alejandro Fernandez, a Charivari Films production.

(Translated from French)