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Newen Connect will head to AFM with four fresh French features: trans-continental comedy Off To India,romance Match Made In Heaven, sisterhood comedy drama Better Days and family adventure Marius & the Treasure Hunters.

Newen Connect is the TF1-owned film and TV distribution arm of French media group Newen Studios. The new films continue the outfit’s push into more commercial, comedy-driven, local-language fare produced by TF1 Group production companies and third-party producers.

Ali and Redouane Bougheraba’s Off To India (Delocalisés) stars the latter co-director as a mattress factory worker relocated to India who convinces his French girlfriend to...

"Hot guys crossing Europe by bus... Things are definitely gonna happen." Peccadillo Pictures has debuted an official UK trailer for an amusing French gay comedy titled The Shiny Shrimps, also Les Crevettes Pailletées originally in French. Matthias Le Goff, an Olympic champion at the end of his career, makes a homophobic statement on TV. His punishment: coach "The Shiny Shrimps", a flamboyant and amateur gay water-polo team. They have only one goal in mind: to qualify for the Gay Games in Croatia where the hottest international Lgbtq athletes compete. But the guys are more interested in partying than practicing, unless Le Goff can get them in line. Nicolas Gob stars as Le Goff, with a cast including Alban Lenoir, Michaël Abiteboul, David Baïot, Romain Lancry, Roland Menou, Geoffrey Couët, Romain Brau, Félix Martinez, Maïa Quesemand, and Pierre Samuel. This reminds me of Sink or Swim, another French water sports all-male-team comedy from last year.

Guillaume Gallienne and Guillaume Canet are Paul Cézanne and Émile Zola in Danièle Thompson's Cézanne Et Moi

Where else can you find Édouard Manet (Nicolas Gob), Camille Pissarro (Romain Cottard), Guy de Maupassant (Félicien Juttner), Baptistin Baille (Pierre Yvon), Auguste Renoir (Alexandre Kouchner), Ambroise Vollard (Laurent Stocker), Francisco Oller (Pablo Cisneros), Achille Empéraire (Romain Lancry), Père Tanguy (Christian Hecq), Frédéric Bazille (Patrice Tepasso), the great Sabine Azéma as Paul Cézanne's mother, and Glasgow's own Freya Mavor (Joann Sfar's The Lady In The Car With Glasses And A Gun) as the mother to Zola's children - all in one film?

Danièle Thompson on Jean-Marie Dreujou: "He's a wonderful cinematographer." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Déborah François (of Régis Roinsard's Populaire) is Hortense, Cézanne's wife, Alice Pol is Zola's wife Alexandrine, and his mother Émilie is played by Isabelle Candelier. Back and forth in time we jump, from...