Odette takes flight
For the second week running, a domestic production is heading the bill on Belgian screens, with the Alternative Films release of Eric Emmanuel Schmitt’s debut feature Odette Toulemonde [+see also:
trailer
film profile] on 16 screens.
The successful French artist-novelist-playwright of international renown – who is also a philosopher and an essay writer – has now turned to the big screen.
Schmitt spoke to Cineuropa about his ambitions (see interview and news) in Belgium – where the film was shot and where the writer currently lives.
French actress Catherine Frot stars as the film’s central character, Odette Toulemonde, in a film about a writer (Albert Dupontel) who escapes his milieu and finds refuge in an unconditional admirer who puts the spark back into his life.
With a storyline similar to those in Schmitt’s novels, the film was co-produced in Belgium by Anne-Dominique Toussaint (Les Films de l'Etang, with Climax Films, Wallimage, and the Communauté française. French co-producers were Bel Ombre, Pathé Renn Productions and TF1 Films Production.
The title also opens in France today through Pathé and is being sold worldwide by Pathé International.
The nine other new releases this week include five European (co-)productions, which offer a fine array of diversity, both in cultural and cinematic terms. One of two US co-productions hitting theatres is INLAND EMPIRE [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see article), David Lynch’s US/Polish/French film (a Canal + production sold by StudioCanal), which goes on release through Cinéart on 11 screens nationwide.
Also making an appearance is Kevin MacDonald with his debut feature (see news) The Last King of Scotland [+see also:
trailer
film profile], co-produced by Film4 (20th Century Fox, 15 screens).
BFD are launching Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s Austrian documentary, Our Daily Bread, which recently screened at the IDFA (see news), while La Coopérative Nouveau Cinéma are releasing Spanish helmer Joaquin Oristrell’s Unconscious [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see Making Of) and Juan Carlos Cremata’s Viva Cuba [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a Cuban co-production with French outfit Quad Productions (dist. Victory Films).
(Translated from French)
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