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The French action thriller Ad Vitam has seen huge success on Netflix since being released earlier this month, but there’s another, hard-hitting action flick from France on the streaming platform that you should absolutely check out. Whether you enjoyed Ad Vitam or not. Released back in 2022, Athena drops audiences into the chaotic world of riots and violence following the tragic killing of a young boy. The boy’s three older brothers, one a soldier, the other a criminal, and the third out for revenge, find themselves at the center of the raging conflict.

Directed and co-written by Romain Gavras alongside Ladj Ly and Elias Belkeddar, Athena stars Dali Benssalah (No Time to Die), Sami Slimane (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice), Anthony Bajon (The Prayer), Ouassini Embarek (The Good Thief), Alexis Manenti. You can check out the official synopsis below.

“After the death of his youngest brother following an alleged police altercation, Abdel...

Netflix Buys Japanese Romcom ‘Turn To Me Mukai-Kun’ From Nippon TV

Netflix has acquired romantic comedy drama Turn To Me Mukai-Kun from Japan’s Nippon TV. The series will stream on Netflix starting July 12, immediately after its broadcast on Nippon TV’s Wednesday primetime slot. Hulu Japan, which is owned by Nippon TV, will also stream the series in Japan immediately after its primetime broadcast. Based on the award-winning manga by Yoko Nemu, the series stars Eiji Akaso as a young man with a perfect life but disastrous love life who reconnects with an unforgettable ex.

‘How Do You Live?’ To Be First Studio Ghibli Film To Get Simultaneous Imax Release

Japan’s Studio Ghibli has announced that Hayao Miyazaki’s final film, How Do You Live?, will have an Imax release when it opens in Japan this Friday (July 14), marking the first of the animation master’s films to release simultaneously in Imax.

Studiocanal has boarded “A Prophet,” a new television adaptation of Jacques Audiard’s acclaimed 2009 film. The eight-episode limited series started filming on July 3, with “Django” director Enrico Maria Artale and a diverse new cast led by Mamadou Sidibé.

The French-language series brings back the award-winning team behind the original film, including creators and writers Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit (“The Returned”), as well as producer Marco Cherqui (“Savages”), in agreement with “A Prophet” producers Why Not Productions and Page 114.

The show, which is filming in Marseille and Puglia, Italy, is produced by Cherqui and Sebastien Janin, former Apple exec and co-founder of Media Musketeers, and co-produced by Ugc, Orange Studio, Entourage Series and Savon Noir, with the participation of Ocs. The key crew includes “Gomorra” cinematographer Ferran Paredes Rubio. Veteran Italian producer Fabio Conversi (“Youth”) is exec producing the series.

The original movie won the grand jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival,...

If I need to tell you what a great year for movies we just had in 2022, you might be perusing the wrong website. Sure, there may be a lot fewer movies hitting theaters than we're used to, with the theatrical distribution model still recovering from the industry-crippling pandemic, but that just means there was a little less garbage to sift through. However, even with fewer movies at the multiplex, trying to piece together my list of favorite films turned out to be quite the difficult prospect.

Figuring out my absolute favorites toward the top of my list was quite easy, but determining what movies were going to end up towards the end of the list, especially when it came to shifting films outside of my Top 10 Films of 2022, was a lot more challenging. Trying to determine which movies fell just outside of my list was extremely difficult, and there are...

Netflix’s masterpiece, Athena, was shot mainly on the Arri Alexa 65 by cinematographer Matias Boucard AFC. Boucard utilized this extra-large sensor to enhance motion and storytelling in long takes, and within extreme environments.

Athena BTS. Picture: Netflix Athena: Children of Men

Athena is a 2022 French epic action tragedy film directed by Romain Gavras. Starring Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek, and Alexis Manenti, the film examines inequality and police violence in a French banlieue community. The film had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 2022, where it competed for the Golden Lion award, and was released on 23 September 2022 by Netflix.

Athena BTS. Picture: Netflix Athena BTS. Picture: Netflix

It was praised for its acting, score, direction, and technical aspects, especially regarding its cinematography. Athena’s Dp is Matias Boucard AFC, who used the extra-large sensor of the Arri Alexa 65 to enhance motion, and camera kinetics,...

The leaves are withering, the air is turning crisp, and film festival season is well underway — which means even more foreign-language movies to receive raves on the fall awards circuit before getting promptly buried on a streamer. But don't let that happen to "Athena," a staggering French drama that is in danger of falling into the Netflix abyss, crowded out by your "Gray Men" or "Kissing Booth's." Or check out one of last year's forgotten festival darlings in Céline Sciamma's "Petite Maman." And because spooky season is now here, we have a horror anime classic making their streaming debuts, alongside a cyberpunk anime classic. Plus, "Little Women," but make it crime?

Let's fire up those subtitles and get streaming.

Athena – Netflix

Country: France

Genre: Action drama

Director: Romain Gavras

Cast: Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek, Alexis Manenti.

"Athena" is a Molotov cocktail of a movie: incendiary,...

The Film Circuit begins with Telluride, a small but perfect film festival in the mountains of Colorado as simultaneously Venice unfurls the films that will soon be released in the wonderful arthouse cinemas of Europe, followed closely by Toronto whose films foretell the coming year’s Oscars nominees. It is a very exciting time to be on the festival circuit.

And simultaneously with these great screenings are sidebars, panel discussions, workshops, master classes and all around great networking for filmmakers around the world.

Venezia 79 Competition

Il Signore Delle Formiche

Director Gianni Amelio

Main Cast Luigi Lo Cascio, Elio Germano, Leonardo Maltese, Sara Serraiocco / Italy / 134’

The Whale

Director Darren Aronofsky

Main Cast Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, Ty Simpkins / USA / 117’

White Noise

Director Noah Baumbach

Main Cast Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, Raffey Cassidy, Sam Nivola, May Nivola, Jodie Turner-Smith, André L. Benjamin and Lars Eidinger / USA / 136’

L’IMMENSITÀ

Director Emanuele Crialese

Main Cast Penélope Cruz, Luana Giuliani, Vincenzo Amato, Patrizio Francioni / Italy, France / 97’

Saint Omer

Director Alice Diop

Main Cast Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville, Aurélia Petit / France / 123’

Blonde

Director Andrew Dominik

Main Cast Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, Julianne Nicholson, Lily Fisher / USA / 166’

TÁR

Director Todd Field

Main Cast Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, Mark Strong / USA / 158’

Love Life

Director Kôji Fukada

Main Cast Fumino Kimura, Kento Nagayama, Atom Sunada / Japan, France / 123’

Bardo, Falsa CRÓNICA De Unas Cuantas Verdades

Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Main Cast Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid, Iker Sanchez Solano, Andrés Almeida, Francisco Rubio / Mexico / 174’

Athena

Director Romain Gavras

Main Cast Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek, Alexis Manenti / France / 97’

Bones And All

Director Luca Guadagnino

Main Cast Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance, André Holland, Chloë Sevigny, Jessica Harper, David Gordon Green, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jake Horowitz / USA / 130’

The Eternal Daughter

Director Joanna Hogg

Main Cast Tilda Swinton, Joseph Mydell, Carly-Sophia Davies / UK, USA / 96’

Shab, Dakheli, Divar (Beyond The Wall)

Director Vahid Jalilvand

Main Cast Navid Mohammadzadeh, Diana Habibi, Amir Aghaee / Iran / 126’

The Banshees Of Inisherin

Director Martin McDonagh

Main Cast Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan / Ireland, UK, USA / 109’

Argentina, 1985

Director Santiago Mitre

Main Cast Ricardo Darín, Peter Lanzani, Alejandra Flechner, Norman Briski / Argentina, USA / 140’

Chiara

Director Susanna Nicchiarelli

Main Cast Margherita Mazzucco, Andrea Carpenzano, Carlotta Natoli, Paola Tiziana Cruciani, Luigi Lo Cascio / Italy, Belgium / 106’

Monica

Director Andrea Pallaoro

Main Cast Trace Lysette, Patricia Clarkson, Adriana Barraza, Emily Browning, Joshua Close / USA, Italy / 113’

Khers Nist (No Bears)

Director Jafar Panahi

Main Cast Jafar Panahi, Naser Hashemi, Vahid Mobaseri, Bakhtiar Panjeei, Mina Kavani, Reza Heydari / Iran / 107’

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed

Director Laura Poitras

USA / 117’

Un Couple

Director Frederick Wiseman

Main Cast Nathalie Boutefeu / France, USA / 64’

The Son

Director Florian Zeller

Main Cast Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, Zen McGrath, Anthony Hopkins, Hugh Quarshie / UK / 124’

Les Miens

Director Roschdy Zem

Main Cast Sami Bouajila, Roschdy Zem, Meriem Serbah, Maïwenn, Rachid Bouchareb, Abel Jafrei, Nina Zem / France / 85’

Les Enfants Des Autres

Director Rebecca Zlotowski

Main Cast Virginie Efira, Roschdy Zem, Chiara Mastroianni, Callie Ferreira / France / 104’

Toronto is in spite of itself in a civilized sort of way in competition for the premieres with Venice, though the sequential festivals are serving different constituencies. Still, The Whale, for example is premiering in Venice and then traveling to TIFF.

TIFF Gala Presentations:

The Whale directed by Darren Aronofsky, produced and to be distributed in U.S. and actng as international sales agent A24.

TIFF says: “Brendan Fraser gives a career-defining performance in Darren Aronofsky’s arrestingly intimate drama about a reclusive English professor struggling with personal relationships and self-acceptance, adapted from the stage play by Samuel D. Hunter.”

Alice, Darling by Mary Nighy

Also playing are Alice, Darling (Mary Nighy) in which Anna Kendrick captures the anxious psychology of a woman in an abusive relationship as her friends try to reconnect with her while on a cottage getaway.

Black Ice(Hubert Davis) about Black hockey players facing systemic racism in the sport.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever (Peter Farrelly) about man’s story of leaving New York in 1967 to bring beer to his childhood buddies in the Army while they are fighting in Vietnam. An Apple TV+ production.

Butcher’s Crossing (Gabe Polsky) is a frontier epic about an Ivy League drop-out as he travels to the Colorado wilderness, where he joins a team of buffalo hunters on a journey that puts his life and sanity at risk. Based on the highly acclaimed novel by John Williams. Isa Altitude

The Hummingbird (Francesca Archibugi)Hunt (Jung-jae Lee)A Jazzman’s Blues (Tyler Perry)Kacchey Limbu (Shubham Yogi)Moving On (Paul Weitz)Paris Memories (Alice Winocour)Prisoner’s Daughter (Catherine Hardwicke)Raymond & Ray (Rodrigo García)Roost (Amy Redford)Sidney (Reginald Hudlin)The Son (Florian Zeller)The Swimmers (Sally El Hosaini)What’s Love Got to Do With It? (Shekhar Kapur)The Woman King(Gina Prince-Bythewood)

Special PRESENTATIONSAllelujah (Sir Richard Eyre)All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger)The Banshees Of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)Blueback (Robert Connolly)The Blue Caftan (Maryam Touzani)Broker (Hirokazu Kore-eda)Brother (Clement Virgo)Bros (Nicholas Stoller)Catherine Called Birdy (Lena Dunham)Causeway (Lila Neugebauer)Chevalier (Stephen Williams)Corsage (Marie Kreutzer)Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)Devotion (Jd Dillard)Driving (Madeleine Christian Carion)El Suplente (Diego Lerman)Empire of Light...

It’s always tempting to fetishize single-shot sequences — to look for visible seams in their making, to wonder how many times it took to nail the final take, to get caught up in the meticulous, Milton Bradley’s Mouse Trap choreography of it all. Some are great, some are merely show-offy, and others go from bravura to self-indulgent simply by outstaying their welcome by 30 seconds. It’s usually just look-ma-no-cuts razzle dazzle, a bit of filmmaking virtuosity designed to have viewers wondering, “How did they do that?” The more pertinent question,...

The Unifrance cocktail event at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, held in partnership with Variety, saw a heady mix of film executives and artists mingle at the sea terrace of the plush Excelsior hotel.

Presiding over proceedings was Unifrance executive director Daniela Elstner and artists present included director Romain Gavras and actor Ouassini Embarek, whose film “Athena” is in the main competition at the festival. Also attending were actor Swann Arlaud, César winner for “Bloody Milk” and “By the Grace of God,” who is at Venice with his new film “Beating Sun,” by Philippe Petit, who was also present; and filmmaker Audrey Diwan, who won the Venice Golden Lion last year for “Happening” and is serving on the jury this year.

Jean-Paul Salomé and Bertrand Faivre, the director and producer respectively of Horizons strand selection “The Sitting Duck,” were also present as was “The Blessed” filmmaker Sofia Djama, who...

Romain Gavras’ immersive modern tragedy Athena just had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, receiving a 4 1/2-minute standing ovation in the process.

The French film had people applauding and whooping from the start of the end credits before the crowd stood for the ovation.

The kinetic story begins just after the death of a young boy, in unexplained circumstances, throwing his three brothers and the whole of the eponymous Athena housing project outside Paris into chaos.

Venice Film Festival Photo Gallery: Chalamet, Blanchett, Iñárritu & More

In a star-making turn, Dali Benssalah plays Abdel, a soldier in the French army who is called back from the frontline after the death of his youngest brother following an alleged police altercation, and finds his family torn apart. Caught between his younger brother Karim’s (Sami Slimane) desire for revenge and the criminal dealings of his older brother Moktar (Ouassini Embarek), he...

Designed as something akin to a Greek tragedy for today’s moment, Venice Film Festival Competition title Athena is a torrent, an inundation, a cascade of rage, fury and frustration over the realities of life for a particular group of French families. Such conditions exist in most societies, some more dire than others, but here the wages of pent-up anger are presented with a single-minded intensity and extended duration that would be hard to exceed.

Following in the powerful wake of the 2019 Oscar-nominated sensation Les Misérables, which was also set in a teeming eastern suburb of Paris rarely seen by outsiders, director Romain Gavras and his co-writers Elias Belkeddar and Les Misérables director Ladj Ly use undiluted adrenalin and immersive you-are-there camerawork to plunge you into the middle of a classical drama for modern times. The Netflix-backed film grabs you by the throat and barely allows you a moment for a gasp of air.

Pardon my French, but the first shot of Romain Gavras’ “Athena” — a sketch of a Greek tragedy transplanted into a housing project on the outskirts of Paris — is absolutely fucking insane. Even in a digital age where dazzling long-takes have become a dime a dozen (and all too easy to fake), the oner that ignites this roman candle of a movie about a police siege on a poor neighborhood is something else. It stands out for its fiery violence, for the ground that it covers, and for the incandescent energy that explodes off the screen like the molotov cocktail that Karim (Sami Slimane) hurls into a crowd of cops and reporters who’ve gathered for a press conference at the local precinct.

The news of the day is personal for the young agitator: Karim’s 13-year-old brother has been murdered, and a video of police officers beating him to death has gone viral.

Venice film festival: A staggeringly good opening set piece is the high point of Romain Gavras’s gritty thriller about police racism

Romain Gavras’s new drama-thriller is about racism, violence and injustice in the Paris banlieues – broadly in the tradition of Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine and Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables. It’s spectacular and immersive, with a sensational opening. But it gets bogged down in its own one-note, one-tempo uproar and open-ended parkour camerawork – impressive though that is – and suffers from a number of sneaky false-flag get-out clauses that feel like a cop-out.

It tells the story of four brothers of Algerian origin in the same tough Athena housing estate. Idir has just been killed by a bunch of cops – or guys in cop uniforms – for daring to talk back, an atrocity captured on a viral video. Abdel (Dali Benssalah) is a decorated army hero, Moktar (Ouassini Embarek...

There is no Athena housing project in Paris. That’s a name invented by “Athena” director Romain Gavras and partner in crime Ladj Ly for the banlieu apartment block that becomes a kind of makeshift fortress in an epic standoff between residents — first- and second-generation Black and Arab immigrants tired of being mistreated — and the French national police. Naming it thus lends what unfolds there a classical resonance, one that ties Gavras’ astonishing third feature to the tradition of Greek tragedy, though the situation could hardly be more timely.

“Athena” tells the story of four brothers, one murdered on camera by a group of unidentified men in police uniforms, the three others torn about what to do next. Who were these assailants, shown stomping an innocent 13-year-old to death? Why does the French police seem to be protecting the culprits? And what will it take to obtain justice?

These questions...

Click here to read the full article.

With his incendiary 2019 debut feature, Les Misérables, director Ladj Ly brought the urban unrest, the police brutality and the festering social and racial inequality of the Paris banlieue drama La Haine hurtling into the 21st century, its belly aflame with righteous anger and indignation. Ly serves as a writer and producer on Romain Gavras’ Athena, which is both a companion piece to those films and a thundering amplification of their themes. Where the earlier works built to stunning crescendos of violence, Athena is a live grenade, beginning in full ignition mode and dialing up its intensity throughout with virtuoso technique.

That latter factor will surprise no one familiar with the output of Gavras, son of renowned Greek director Costa-Gavras, who made a mark with his dynamic music videos for artists including Kanye West, Jay-Z and M.I.A. His third feature is a...

After the edgy crime comedy “The World Is Yours,” Romain Gavras is back with thriller “Athena.” Produced by Paris-based Iconoclast for Netflix, the ambitious, €15 million film (15 million) unfolds in the aftermath of the tragic killing of a young boy in what appears to be an act of police brutality. An all-out war sparks in an imaginary community called Athena. It’s the first French movie that Netflix is presenting in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

“Athena” tells the story of the boy’s three siblings, who are responding to the tragedy in different ways and clashing with one another. French star Dali Benssalah plays the older brother, Abdel, a devoted French soldier. Faced with an impossible moral dilemma, Abdel is called back from the frontline to help diffuse the all-out war that has been sparked by his younger brother Karim (Sami Slimane), who wants revenge. Athena becomes the backdrop...

Athena Trailer 2 — Netflix has released the second movie trailer for Athena (2022). Crew Romain Gavras‘ Athena stars Dali Benssalah, Alexis Manenti, Anthony Bajon, Sami Slimane, and Ouassini Embarek. Romain Gavras, Ladj Ly, and Elias Belkeddar wrote the screenplay for Athena. Plot Synopsis Athena‘s plot synopsis: “It is difficult to fight anger; for a man will [...]

Continue reading: Athena (2022) Movie Trailer 2: Romain Gavras’ Community Under Siege & Siblings at War Film...

Netflix has released a new trailer for “Athena,” the latest film from Romain Gavras which will premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival and hit streaming on Sept. 23.

Described as a modern Greek tragedy, “Athena” follows a French soldier named Abdel (Dali Benssalah) who is called back from the frontline after his youngest brother, still a child, is killed in an alleged police altercation. Caught between his younger brother Karim’s (Sami Slimane) desire for revenge and the criminal dealings of his older brother Moktar (Ouassini Embarek), Abdel struggling to calm the rising tensions as Karim leads the town’s youth in a revolt against the police, turning their community into a fortress under siege.

Also Read:

‘Purple Hearts’ Enters Netflix All-Time Films List, Passing ‘The Irishman’ and ‘The Unforgivable’

Gavras, who the music video for Jay-Z and Ye’s “No Church in the Wild,” directed and produced the film.

"When they strike, we strike back. When they kill, we kill." Holy! Sh*t! Strap in – this looks Awesome! Netflix has debuted the full official trailer for Athena, the latest from French filmmaker Romain Gavras (The World Is Yours). He teams up with the talented filmmaker Ladj Ly, who co-wrote the script and co-produces this, to make a film about youth clashing with police in France. Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos. This is premiering at the 2022 Venice Film Festival which kicks off next week and it looks like it's going to knock us out. It looks like Ladj Ly's Les Miserable meets La Haine meets Snyder's 300, with a "war" kicking off in the streets of Paris. Athena stars Dali Benssalah, Alexis Manenti, Anthony Bajon, Sami Slimane, and Ouassini Embarek. I really love these kind...

While making his name with his striking music videos for the likes of M.I.A., Jay-Z & Kanye West, Jamie xx, and more, French director Romain Gavras has also proven prowess in the feature-length department with Our Day Will Come and The World Is Yours. He’s now back with Athena, which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival before coming to Netflix on September 23, and now the first trailer has landed.

Co-written by Ladj Ly (Les Misérables) and Elias Belkeddar alongside Gavras, the film follows three siblings thrown into chaos after the death of their young brothers following an alleged police altercation. Starring Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek, and Alexis Manenti, Gavras’ third feature looking to be a stylish, gripping tragedy.

See the trailer below.

Athena premieres at Venice and arrives on Netflix on September 23.

The post Athena Trailer: Romain Gavras' Venice-Bound Drama Finds Siblings at...

Justice will be served as anarchy erupts following a murder at the hands of a rogue police officer.

Romain Gavras’ “Athena” tells an all-too-timely tale of cop corruption, militant protests, and the intersection between nationalism and personal duty. The film premieres at the 2022 Venice Film Festival on September 2, followed by a September 23 Netflix release.

Per the official synopsis, after the death of his youngest brother following an alleged police altercation, Abdel (Dali Benssalah) is called back from the frontline to find his family torn apart. Caught between his younger brother Karim’s (Sami Slimane) desire for revenge and the criminal dealings of his older brother Moktar (Ouassini Embarek), he struggles to calm the rising tensions. As the situation escalates, their community Athena is transformed into a fortress under siege, becoming a scene of tragedy for both the family and beyond.

Gavras directed, produced, and co-wrote the feature along with Ladj Ly...

Exclusive: Romain Gavras’ Athena will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, and we’ve got a first-look at the trailer for the immersive modern tragedy from Netflix — check it out above. Following Athena’s Lido bow, it will be released globally on Netflix September 23.

Athena is the third feature from Gavras, here teaming with previous collaborator Elias Belkeddar and longtime friend Ladj Ly (Les Misérables) on writing duties. Ly and Gavras are also producers.

The story begins just after the death of a young boy, in unexplained circumstances, throwing his three brothers and the whole of the eponymous Athena housing project outside Paris into chaos.

In a star-making turn, Dali Benssalah plays Abdel, a soldier in the French army who is called back from the frontline after the death of his youngest brother following an alleged police altercation, and finds his family torn apart. Caught...

Whoa!! Netflix has revealed the first look teaser trailer for a new film titled Athena, the latest from French filmmaker Romain Gavras. He teams up with the talented filmmaker Ladj Ly, who co-wrote the script and co-produces this, to make a film about youth clashing with police in France. Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos. That's the only very brief synopsis available so far, and it sounds very similar to La Haine or Ly's last film Les Miserables (which rules) - from this footage, it looks like a combination of both. Athena stars Dali Benssalah, Alexis Manenti, Anthony Bajon, Sami Slimane, and Ouassini Embarek. It might premiere at a few festivals in the fall, but nothing has been announced yet. For now get a first look at some footage below - which reveals a quote to...

Netflix is teaming with Romain Gavras, the French filmmaker of “The World is Yours” and “Our Day Will Come,” for his next film which will start production this week in France.

The untitled film will mark Gavras’s follow up to his 2018 film “The World is Yours,” a crime comedy with Isabelle Adjani and Vincent Cassel, which world premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. His 2010 feature debut, “Our Day Will Come,” played at Toronto and SXSW. Aside from his filmmaking career, Garvas is also a renown director of music videos for Jay Z, Kanye West, Jamie Xx, M.I.A and Justice, among others, and has directed short films for luxury brands, including Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent and Dior.

The film, the plot of which is under wraps, is co-written by Gavras and Ladj Ly, the director of the Oscar-nominated “Les Misérables” and Elias Belkeddar (“My days of glory”). Gavras...

French-Greek filmmaker Romain Gavras, whose credits include the 2018 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection The World Is Yours and 2020 Toronto premiere Our Day Will Come, is underway on his new film, this time with Netflix.

The streamer is keeping title, plot and genre under wraps on the mysterious movie, which is now in production in France.

The script comes from Gavras and Ladj Ly, who directed the 2019 Cannes hit Les Miserables, which was Oscar nominated. Elias Belkeddar (My Days Of Glory) is also a writer on the project.

Starring are Dali Benssalah (No Time To Die), Anthony Bajon (Teddy), Cesar Winner Alexis Manenti (Les Misérables), Ouassini Embarek (The Eddy), and newcomer Sami Slimane. Iconoclast is producing. Netflix is aiming to release in 2022.

Benoît Jacquot's Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux à la Reine) starring his leading ladies Léa Seydoux, Diane Kruger and Virginie Ledoyen

CinéSalon's Benoît Jacquot: Leading Ladies (March 3 - 24), curated by Delphine Selles-Alvarez at the French Institute Alliance Française in celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York included screenings of The Disenchanted (La Désenchantée) starring Judith Godrèche, Marcel Bozonnet and Ivan Desny, introduced by Jacquot; A Single Girl (La Fille Seule) - Virginie Ledoyen, Benoît Magimel, Dominique Valadié introduced by choreographer Blanca Li, who has worked with Pedro Almodovar and Michel Gondry; Villa Amalia - Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Xavier Beauvois and À Tout De Suite - Isild Le Besco, Ouassini Embarek, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Laurence Cordier.

Léa Seydoux is lovely and tough as the reader and our heroine in Farewell, My Queen Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

On Tuesday, March 24 at 7:30pm, Eye For...

CANNES -- Outlaw couples on the run are familiar figures in cinema, extending back to such pictures as "Gun Crazy", "They Live by Night", "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Badlands". What is unique about Benoit Jacquot's "A Tout de Suite" is his complete focus on the female half of the bandit team. His 19-year-old heroine uses her adventures on the run to explore personal freedoms. It's a voyage of self-discovery that will forever mark her life.

The richness of this character, beautifully played by Isild Le Besco, should propel "A Tout de Suite" into more festival exposure and theatrical engagements in Europe. Commercial opportunities may be limited in North America, though, because this is a crime movie that keeps nearly all the crime off-camera.

The time is 1975, which affords Jacquot ("Sade") several opportunities: He can shoot in luminous black-and-white, thus harkening back to all those noir gangster pictures; explore the pre-AIDS sexual revolution; and turn the story into a woman's recollection about the turning point in her life.

Le Besco plays a young art student -- she is never named -- in quiet rebellion against a comfortable bourgeois existence in her divorced father's spacious flat. Captivated by a Moroccan youth (Ouassini Embarek), she offers herself sexually to him almost immediately. When he gets involved in a botched bank robbery, where his partner and a teller are killed, she shelters him and his accomplices in her bedroom, then insists he take her on his flight from justice.

His escape is her escape too, a journey toward an illusory freedom that takes her through Spain, Morocco and Greece. When she loses her lover, she must confront a new life and piece things back together for herself with other people and new liaisons.

Writer-director Jacquot and Le Besco collaborate in the creation of a memorable heroine. She is impulsive, strong-willed and decisive. She uses her body for pleasure and to draw people to her, but it is only with the robber that she establishes intimacy.

She is not verbal. She conveys most of her emotions through facial language and gesture. She expresses herself with more feeling in her art sketches. Ultimately, she is selfish and demanding yet is so with an almost shy innocence.

"A Tout de Suite" has the emotional immediacy reminiscent of New Wave films coupled with a compelling heroine of breathless intensity.

CANNES -- Outlaw couples on the run are familiar figures in cinema, extending back to such pictures as "Gun Crazy", "They Live by Night", "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Badlands". What is unique about Benoit Jacquot's "A Tout de Suite" is his complete focus on the female half of the bandit team. His 19-year-old heroine uses her adventures on the run to explore personal freedoms. It's a voyage of self-discovery that will forever mark her life.

The richness of this character, beautifully played by Isild Le Besco, should propel "A Tout de Suite" into more festival exposure and theatrical engagements in Europe. Commercial opportunities may be limited in North America, though, because this is a crime movie that keeps nearly all the crime off-camera.

The time is 1975, which affords Jacquot ("Sade") several opportunities: He can shoot in luminous black-and-white, thus harkening back to all those noir gangster pictures; explore the pre-AIDS sexual revolution; and turn the story into a woman's recollection about the turning point in her life.

Le Besco plays a young art student -- she is never named -- in quiet rebellion against a comfortable bourgeois existence in her divorced father's spacious flat. Captivated by a Moroccan youth (Ouassini Embarek), she offers herself sexually to him almost immediately. When he gets involved in a botched bank robbery, where his partner and a teller are killed, she shelters him and his accomplices in her bedroom, then insists he take her on his flight from justice.

His escape is her escape too, a journey toward an illusory freedom that takes her through Spain, Morocco and Greece. When she loses her lover, she must confront a new life and piece things back together for herself with other people and new liaisons.

Writer-director Jacquot and Le Besco collaborate in the creation of a memorable heroine. She is impulsive, strong-willed and decisive. She uses her body for pleasure and to draw people to her, but it is only with the robber that she establishes intimacy.

She is not verbal. She conveys most of her emotions through facial language and gesture. She expresses herself with more feeling in her art sketches. Ultimately, she is selfish and demanding yet is so with an almost shy innocence.

"A Tout de Suite" has the emotional immediacy reminiscent of New Wave films coupled with a compelling heroine of breathless intensity.