10/11/2008

Currently on screens in the blockbuster Quantum of Solace [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile] and soon to appear in Public Enemy Number One (Part 2) [+see also:
trailer
film profile], actor Mathieu Amalric will once again don his director’s cap for his fourth directorial feature, Tournée (“Tour”), which has just been selected for pre-sales and co-production support from Arte France Cinéma.

After Mange ta soupe (“Eat Your Soup”, 1997), Wimbledon Stage (selected at Locarno in 2001 and Rotterdam in 2002) and Public Affairs (which screened in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2003), Amalric will shoot Tournée in spring 2009.

Produced by Les Films du Poisson, the feature traces several days in the life of a show producer, who has left his homeland to live in the US. He returns to France with a troupe of New Burlesque performers and tours the port cities before staging a final show in Paris.

Arte France Cinéma also decided to back Aurora, the third feature by Romanian director Cristi Puiu, who was discovered in the 2001 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight with Stuff and Dough and won an award in the Un Certain Regard section in 2005 for The Death of Mister Lazarescu [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Produced by France’s Philippe Bober for Société Parisienne de Production, Aurora will start shooting in February 2009. The film is made up of six stories set on the outskirts of Bucharest, imagined as a series of critical fables on the aspirations of the Romanian middle class, and as homage to Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales.

Arte France Cinéma also selected Un poison violent (“A Violent Poison”) by 28-year-old filmmaker Katell Quillévéré, who won acclaim for her shorts (A bras le corps in 2005 and L’imprudence in 2007). Produced by Les Films du Bélier and starring Lio, this debut feature will centre on a 14-year-old girl and the five characters who occupy her life during the two-week holiday in the village where she grew up.

Turkish documentary filmmaker Pelin Esmer’s debut feature K&Ali is also among the four selected projects. The director – who received backing from the Cannes Film Festival Cinéfondation in 2007 – has production support from French company Stromboli Films.

Michel Reilhac – who heads Arte France Cinéma – also shortlisted L'arbre et la forêt (“The Tree and the Forest”) by Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, Antoine Blossier’s Proie (“Prey”, Quasar Pictures), Alicia Duffy’s The Republic of Trees (Backup Films), Agnès Troublé’s Je m’appelle Hmmm… (“I’m Called Hmmm… “, Lazennec & Associés), Marion Hansel’s Noir Océan (“Black Ocean”, Asap Films), Marius Holst’s Kings of Devil’s Island (Mact Productions) and Fleur de papier (“Paper Flower”) by Tareque and Catherine Masud (Cinéma Defacto).

Yariv Horowitz’s Rock the Casbah and Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s Des filles en noir (“Girls in Black”, Les Films Pelléas) will have a second chance to receive funding at the next selection committee.

(Translated from French)