News

Last week we got the first set of titles that will (for the most part) premiere at the 2022 San Sebastián International Film Festival. Earlier today, the Donostia folks lassoed thirteen films for their New Directors section. They include projects that we’ve been keeping an eye out on for a good stretch including Laura Baumeister‘s Daughter of Rage – a social issue drama that has taken its sweet time in post (there might be some Efx elements). We also find Dinara Drukarova‘s Le Grand Marin – which was co-wrote with Raphaëlle Desplechin and sees Drukarova, Dylan Robert, Antonythasan Jesuthasan and Sam Louwyck in the book to film project set in Iceland.…...

French writer-director Elie Grappe’s debut feature, “Olga,” co-written with Raphaëlle Desplechin, uses a unique lens to examine the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution, the protests that rocked Kyiv and sent President Victor Yanukovych into exile.

The “Revolution of Dignity” was a powerful statement of nationality by the Ukrainian people, and while they ousted their corrupt Putin-crony president, the protests also sparked the invasion of Crimea and the Donbas by Russia, and continue to linger politically as the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine this year has shocked the globe.

With almost surgical precision, Grappe’s film poses the question, “Are sports political?” through the point of view of a Ukrainian teenage gymnast who must flee to Switzerland in order to continue her training.

Also Read:

Vitali Klitschko to Be Honored With Espys’ Arthur Ashe Award for Courage

Former Ukrainian national gymnastics team member Anastasiia Budiashkina takes on the title role in her first film performance,...

Director Elie Grappe and co-writer Raphaëlle Desplechin waste no time showing their gymnast drama Olga is about more than the parallel bars. They introduce 15-year-old Ukrainian Olga (Anastasiia Budiashkina) perfecting the maneuvers necessary to advance onto the Jaeger technique—a move she hopes will help the team medal at the forthcoming European championships. She and best friend Sasha (Sabrina Rubtsova) are having fun as the nation’s top two athletes in the sport, their confidence so high that Olga doesn’t even really mind the fact her mother (Tanya Mikhina’s Ilona Budishkina) is going to miss another tournament because of work. The reason is simple: Mom’s online journalism has never been as important as it is right now. Important enough to narrowly avoid being intentionally run off the road.

It jolts us from the comparatively small-scale intrigue of a gymnastics tournament. Rather than train with Sasha in Kyiv,...

Olga Trailer — Elie Grappe‘s Olga (2021) movie trailer has been released by Kino Lorber. The Olga trailer stars Anastasiia Budiashkina, Sabrina Rubtsova, and Caterina Barloggio. Crew Raphaëlle Desplechin and Elie Grappe wrote the screenplay for Olga. Pierre Desprats created the music for the film. Lucie Baudinaud crafted the cinematography for the film. Olga Poster Olga Movie Poster Plot [...]

Continue reading: Olga (2021) Movie Trailer: An Exiled Ukrainian Gymnast dreams of joining Switzerland’s National Sports Center...

Ten percent of proceeds to be donated to Direct Relief in Ukraine.

Kino Lorber has acquired all North American distribution rights to Elie Grappe’s Cannes Critics’ Week 2021 selection and Ukrainian gymnast drama Olga.

The distributor plans a theatrical release on June 24, with 10 of proceeds to be donated to Direct Relief in Ukraine.

Olga stars former Ukrainian national team gymnast Anastasiia Budiashkina in her first film role as Olga, a talented teenage Ukrainian gymnast exiled in Switzerland, dreaming of Olympic gold and trying to fit in with her new team in her new home when her family in Ukraine becomes involved in the Maidan Revolution.

Curiosa Trailer — Lou Jeunet‘s Curiosa (2019) movie trailer has been released by Film Movement. The Curiosa trailer stars Noémie Merlant, Niels Schneider, Benjamin Lavernhe, Camelia Jordana, Amira Casar, Mathilde Warnier, Damien Bonnard, Alexia Giordano, and Mélodie Richard. Crew Lou Jeunet and Raphaëlle Desplechin wrote the screenplay for Curiosa. Arnaud Rebotini created the music for the [...]

Continue reading: Curiosa (2019) Movie Trailer: Noémie Merlant Becomes Enmeshed in a Affair Between Husband, Lover, & Muse...

TitaneIN COMPETITIONPalme d’Or: Titane (Julia Ducournau) (Read our review)Grand Prix ex aequo: A Hero (Asgar Farhadi)Grand Prix ex aequo: Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen)Jury Prize ex aequo: Ahed's Knee (Nadav Lapid) (Read our review)Jury Prize ex aequo: Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) (Read our review)Best Director: Leos Carax (Annette)Best Actor: Caleb Landry-Jones (Nitram)Best Actress: Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World)Best Screenplay: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe (Drive My Car) (Read our review)Unclenching the FistsUN Certain REGARDGrand Prize: Unclenching the Fists (Kira Kovalenko) (Read our review)Ensemble Prize: Bonne Mere (Hafsia Herzi)Jury Prize: Great Freedom (Sebastian Meise)Courage: La Civil (Teodora Ana Mihai)Originality: Lamb (Valdimar Jóhannsson)Jury Special Mention: Prayers for the Stolen (Tatiana Huezo)Directors' FORTNIGHTEuropa Cinemas Cannes Label for Best European Film: A Chiara (Jonas Carpignano)Sacd Prize: Magnetic Beats (Vincent Maël Cardona)A ChiaraCAMERA D'ORMurina (Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic...

Prizes are beginning to roll in here at the Cannes Film Festival ahead of the main closing ceremony on Saturday night. Parallel section Critics’ Week, celebrating its 60th edition, is up first with Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairi’s Feathers awarded the Nespresso Grand Prize. The surrealist story sees a magic trick gone awry at a children’s birthday party with the authoritative father of the family turned into a chicken. Critics’ Week is devoted to first and second features, and Feathers, as a debut feature, is also eligible for the Camera d’Or (which will be announced on Saturday during the main awards ceremony).

Former Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungui chaired the Critics’ Week jury for its 60th anniversary this year. The panel also awarded the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award to Sandra Melissa Torres in Amparo by Simón Mesa Soto. She plays a single mother struggling...

Omar El Zohairy’s comedy-drama “Feathers” has won the Nespresso Grand Prize at Critics’ Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s strand dedicated to first and second films.

Set in contemporary Egypt, “Feathers” follows the journey of a woman with three children whose idealist husband is turned into a chicken by a magician in a magic-trick gone awry. El Zohairy used over 30 real chickens in the production with the assistance of an animal trainer. It was produced by Still Moving (France), and co-produced by Film Clinic (Egypt), Lagoonie Film Production (Egypt), Kepler Film (The Netherlands) and Heretic (Greece).

Meanwhile, the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award went to Sandra Melissa Torres for her performance in Simón Mesa Soto’s “Amparo,” about a working-class mother desperately attempting to save her son from military conscription in Colombia.

The Grand Prize and Rising Star awards were given by the jury which was presided over...

The 60th edition marks film critic Charles Tesson’s last year at the helm.

Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy’s surreal tragi-comedy Feathers has scooped the €15,000 grand prize at the 60th edition of Cannes’ Critics’ Week.

It is the debut feature of El Zohairy who cut his teeth working as an assistant director to Youssef Chahine and Yousry Nasrallah.

The story revolves around a family liberated from the control of a tyrannical patriarch after he is turned into a chicken during a magic show. Juliette Lepoutre and Pierre Menahem at France’s Still Moving lead produced in co-production with Cairo-based Film Clinic,...

Pulsar Content has come on board “Olga,” Elie Grappe’s coming-of-age tale set in the competitive world of youth athletics, seen through the eyes of an Ukrainian gymnast living in exile in Switzerland.

The film follows Olga, a talented and passionate 15-year-old Ukrainian gymnast who does her best to fit into the national team. As Olga prepares for the European Championship, the Euromaidan revolt erupts in Kiev in 2013, involving those closest to her, and shakes up everything in her life.

“Olga” was written by Grappe and Raphaëlle Desplechin, whose screenwriting credits include “Nos Batailles” and “Curiosa.” Now in post, the movie is produced by Tom Dercourt at Cinema Defacto in France and Jean-Marc Frohle at Point Prod in Switzerland.

Pulsar Content will launch pre-sales this week at UniFrance’s virtual Rendez-Vous market with the script, and will unveil a promo at Berlin’s virtual European Film Market. “It’s a...

Lyon-born filmmaker Elie Grappe should be anxiously awaiting the world premiere of his first feature “Olga,” but like so many other filmmakers was forced to put everything on hold when the Covid-19 pandemic ground production around the world to a halt. Instead, this year his unfinished film will participate with a host of other similarly postponed projects in Locarno’s The Films After Tomorrow sidebar for films stuck in stasis, waiting to be finished when post-covid production is once again possible.

Co-written with Raphaëlle Desplechin, “Olga” participated at Emergence 2018 and Atelier Grand Nord 2019. It is produced by Point Prod, which has, since launching in 2006, played a major part in development and production of Swiss film and TV projects, including 2016’s “Miséricorde” and last year’s “Tambour,” one of the country’s largest local box office hits. Additional financing comes from Canal Plus and Rts as well as backing by the Office Fédéral de la Culture,...

Strife Sentence: Senez Presents Quietly Effective Domestic Drama

Director Guillaume Senez teams with writer Raphaëlle Desplechin for sophomore feature, Our Struggles, a quiet, unassuming domestic drama about a blue-collar dad left in the lurch. It’s a scenario we’ve seen countless times before, and yet, like his 2015 debut Keeper, Senez balances a fine line between kitchen-sink and human rights subtexts.

Sans any major dramatic outbursts, the simmering humanistic narrative of this French-Belgian co-production is kept afloat by a strong performance from Romain Duris in one of his finest dramatic leads in a decade.…...

The major drama happens upfront in “Our Struggles”; the process of living with its less eventful but consistently taxing fallout, however, is where the meat of Guillaume Senez’s simple, affecting new film lies. Peering into the frown lines left where domestic and professional strife intersect, Senez’s film adopts a tone as straightforward as its title in portraying a dedicated but over-burdened father whose lot intensifies when his wife, out of the blue, walks out on him and their two young children. Like “Kramer vs. Kramer” shot through with the honest workplace politics at which contemporary French cinema excels, Senez’s stout-hearted follow-up to his justly acclaimed debut “Keeper” is less arduous than it sounds, with pockets of joy and hopeful release tucked amid its harder stretches. It might be too low-key to make arthouse waves internationally, but the sturdy star presence of Romain Duris in the lead should...