News

Screen’s Cannes Close-Up interview series talks toCharles Audinet, busy line producer for international shoots in France from Paris and Bordeaux-based production company Les Valseurs.

Audinet has recently worked on Chopin, A Sonata In Paris that used the city of Bordeaux to recreate the 19th century Paris where the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin lived.

“We had to rebuild and recreate all the Parisian streets and suburbs in the city centre of Bordeaux,” says Audinet. “Bordeaux is very interesting because its pre-Haussmannian natural locations.”

In the interview, Audinet also recalls that it was a contact he met at Cannes who gave...

Playtime, a Paris-based sales, production and equity investment company, has picked up “Chopin, a Sonata in Paris,” an ambitious biopic of famed composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin hailing from Poland’s leading production banner Akson Studio.

Budgeted at $17.5 million, the movie reteams producer-director Michał Kwieciński with the rising Polish actor of “Filip,” Eryk Kulm starring as Chopin. Lambert Wilson (“The Matrix Resurrections”) stars as King Louis Philippe.

“Chopin, a Sonata in Paris” boasts a polished, baroque aesthetic bolstered by a key crew including Michał Sobociński, the cinematographer of the AppleTV+ series “The New Look” producer designer Katarzyna Sobańska, whose credits include the Oscar-nominated film “Cold War.”

Penned by Bartosz Janiszewski (“Wataha”), the 19th century-set movie charts Chopin’s journey as a bold, young pianist who left his native Poland at the age of 21 and traveled to Paris where he wielded music’s power like no other. “He is the lifeblood of the city,...

Bordeaux-based Les Valseurs, producer of Yves Piat’s Oscar-nominated short “Nefta Football Club,” has boarded Akson Studio’s period feature “Chopin! Chopin!” as the film’s line producer.

Set in 1830s Paris, the film will dive into Chopin’s personal and professional lives through 11 distinct chapters while also exploring the wider artistic scene of Paris at the time.

“Chopin! Chopin!” is directed by Michał Kwieciński and stars Eryk Kulm, Josephine de la Baume and Lambert Wilson. It’s produced by Warsaw-based Akson Studio — behind Andrzej Wajda’s Oscar-nominated “Katyń” and “Warsaw 44” — and co-produced by Polish Television.

“With ‘Chopin! Chopin!’ We are taking a bold step into production services, combining our dedication to international excellence with a deep passion for regional cinema,” says Charles Audinet, line producer at Les Valseurs. “Bordeaux is becoming a key destination for major film projects, and we are excited to be at the forefront of this transformation.

Lambert Wilson will play King Louis Philippe in Michał Kwieciński’s upcoming drama “Chopin, Chopin!” about composer Frédéric Chopin.

“I’ve always adored Chopin,” Wilson told Variety. “I live with his music and the music of Liszt, and I’ve always been fascinated by the Romantic era in Europe. Particularly in France, with this connection between writers and musicians [revolving] around the character of George Sand.”

According to Lambert, the film’s script — written by Bartosz Janiszewski — gives an “accurate and very touching” vision of the last part of the composer’s life. Chopin died in 1849.

“It alternates between lavish court scenes, where French King Louis Philippe [played by Lambert] will appear both flippant and distressed, and intimate moments, showing the solitude of this artist and his eventual descent into illness and death,” the actor adds.

Chopin will be played by Eryk Kulm, who will also perform the composer’s music in the film.

The UK’s Hurricane Films has joined as co-producer Natalia Koryncka-Gruz’s comedy drama Miss Kebab, the big winner at this Polish Days ,held in Wroclaw during the New Horizons International Film Festival this week.

Miss Kebab won the inaugural Wroclaw Feature Film Studio Award for production and postproduction services worth Pln 100,000.

Based on a true story about a Polish female teacher working in the UK with children from immigrant families, the screenplay was written by Koryncka-Gruz with Kamila Czul, the author of the eponymous novel published in Poland in 2018.

The €2m English-language production is being produced by Koryncka-Gruz through...

Poland’s major public broadcaster, Tvp, is breaking new ground by heading its European Film Market slate with a bittersweet comedy about two middle-aged women.

“The Love Buzz” (“Miłość Jak Miód”) focuses on what happens when two women in their 50s with very different approaches to life agree to swap homes and lifestyles after hitting the menopausal doldrums.

Commissioned and financed by Tvp and exec produced by Warsaw’s Akson Studio, “The Love Buzz” is directed by Maciej Migas, produced by Michal Kwiecinski (“Filip”) and co-written by “Hotel 52” writers Aneta Glowska and Katarzyna Leżeńska.

Aleksandra Kazmieruk, head of global distribution at Tvp, said: “We’re expanding into the rom-com space with this hilarious and heart-warming film. It seems unusual these days to see two women in their 50s finding love and new friendships, and ‘The Love Buzz’ really highlights that age is just a number.”

The film centers around the lives of two women,...

The EnergaCamerimage international cinematography film festival announced a trio of films that will join this year’s main competition lineup: El Conde, Filip and Ferrari.

Michael Mann’s Ferrari was lensed by Oscar-winning Dp Erik Messerschmidt (Mank); Pablo Larraín’s El Condo was photographed by Academy-Award nominated cinematographer Edward Lachman, who won the Camerimage Golden Frog in 2015 for Carol; and Michal Kwiecinski’s Filip was lensed by Dp Michal Sobocinski (The Art of Loving: Story of Michalina Wislocka).

As previously announced, the main competition also includes Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Dp’d by Robbie Ryan, which will be the opening night film; Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, lensed by Rodrigo Prieto; Black Flies, directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire and lensed by David Ungaro; and All of Us Strangers, helmed by Andrew Haigh and photographed by Jamie Ramsay.

The festival also announced this week that Krzysztof Zanussi (The Constant Factor,...

The Santa Barbara Film Festival has today unveiled the lineup for its 38th edition, taking place in-person from February 8-18.

The festival will open with the world premiere of the courtroom drama Miranda’s Victim, from director Michelle Danner. Pic tells the true story of Trish Weir (Abigail Breslin), who in 1963 was kidnapped and brutally raped by Ernesto Miranda. Committed to putting her assailant in prison, Trish’s life is destroyed by America’s legal system as she triggers a law that transforms the nation. Ryan Phillippe, Luke Wilson, Donald Sutherland, Mireille Enos, Andy Garcia and more also star.

Closing out Sbiff 2023 is the Chandler Levack-directed I Like Movies, which makes its U.S. premiere. The film starring Isaiah Lehtinen, Romina D’Ugo, Krista Bridges and Percy Hynes White follows the socially inept, 17-year-old cinephile Lawrence (Lehtinen) as he gets a job at a video store, there forming a complicated...

Exclusive: Poland’s Akson Studio, producer of Andrzej Wajda’s Venice title Walesa. Man Of Hope, is preparing a film set in the world of the Polish mafia.

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily, producer Jan Kwiecinski said the feature, titled Totem, will be “a very raw movie in the vein of films like Bullhead or Pusher.”

He added: “It will be made with non-professional actors, very dark, low budget, and totally different from what we are doing at the moment.”

Totem will mark the feature directorial debut of Jakub Charon, who has previously written and directed two short films, Traces and Tension. He is also a member of alternative rock group NarcolipZ and an author of two novels.

Warsaw Uprising shoot underway

Akson is halfway through its 63-day shoot of Jan Komasa’s Warsaw44 about the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The $8m production is already being touted as the biggest Polish film of 2014.

Eight years ago, Akson Studio’s founder...

The international anthology feature The Fourth Dimension will screen in the Viewpoints program of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival Tuesday, April 24. Jan Kwiecinski, Aleksey Fedorchenko and Harmony Korine directed the film's three shorts, one of which stars Val Kilmer as a motivational speaker. harmony The trailer for the film, which will have its world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival April 20, premiered Monday exclusively on THR. Priya Swaminathan, Matt Elek, Michael Derkits, Charles-Marie Anthonioz and Michal Kwiecinski produced the Grolsch Film Works and Vice Films project. Grolsch is the premier sponsor of Sfiff. Wme Global's Mark Ankner is repping sales on

read more...