L’oeil de l’astronome and Comme nos enfants look for European partners
Selected for the 35th Co-production Forum organised by the European Producers’ Club, 14 feature film projects were presented last week in Rome. Among them were two French titles that are looking for partners and whose screenplays stand out due to their originality: Stan Neumann’s L’oeil de l’astronome (“The Eye of the Astronomer”) and Stéphane Parthenay’s Comme nos enfants (“Like Our Children”).
Produced by Les Films d'Ici, L’oeil de l’astronome already has co-production backing and pre-sales from Arte France Cinéma as well as an advance on receipts from the National Film Centre (CNC). The film looks at Johannes Kepler’s stay in Prague in September 1610, which marks the beginning of the astronomical revolution.
Funded by Emperor Rudolph, the astronomer carries out his research like a hero in search of the absolute: Is the Earth at the centre of the Universe? What controls the movement of the planets?
For ten nights, Kepler has the use of the telescope designed by Galileo: he has a limited amount of time to prove his theories. But several startling characters come and disturb him as he calmly observes the stars.
Piloted by Pyramide Productions, Parthenay’s Comme nos enfants is inspired by real-life events and characters who existed in Paris in 1942. The film centres on the little-known role played by the Paris Mosque during the German Occupation and the way in which Imam Si Kaddour Benghabrit helped save the lives of many people, including Jewish children.
This story of resistance begins with the misadventures of Younes, a young, unemployed worker who is forced by the French police to watch over the Paris Mosque as it is suspected of fraudulently issuing birth certificates to Jews in order to pass them off as Muslims.
(Translated from French)
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