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Actor-director Daniel Auteuil and key “Emilia Perez” collaborator Jean-Baptiste Pouilloux have set up their next features with Les Films Velvet, the auteur-focused production outfit behind this year’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris opener “The Musicians” as well as Rebecca Zlotowski’s upcoming, Jodie Foster-led thriller “Vie Privée.”

After last year’s Cannes-launched legal thriller “An Ordinary Case,” Auteuil will step back behind the camera for the World War II drama “Une Nuit” (“One Night”). Co-written by Auteuil and filmmaker Camille Lugan (“The Book of Joy”), the film follows the incredible true story of a 1942 effort to rescue more then one hundred Jewish children from a deportation camp just outside of Lyon. Les Films Velvet’s Frederic Jouve will produce alongside Adrien Nussenbaum.

An in-demand assistant director who has worked closely with Jacques Audiard, Zlotowski and Nadav Lapid, Pouilloux most recently led second unit on “Emilia Perez” before directing the Canal Plus series “Iris.

Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who won best actress at Cannes for her performance in Ali Abassi’s “Holy Spider” is set to head the jury of the Nordic competition at the Göteborg Film Festival.

Ebrahimi is a celebrated Iranian actor, director, producer and casting director. Her credits include “Bride Price vs. Democracy,” “Teheran Tabu” and Noora Niasari’s film “Shayda” which is set to compete at Sundance. She currently stars in “White Paradise,” a contemporary western directed by Guillaume Renusson which just came out in France.

Ebrahimi will be joined on the jury by actress Sofie Gråbøl, director Antonio Lukich and composer Matti Bye.

“I am incredibly proud to be leading a jury of these impressive artists so that we may not only amplify the stellar work in the festival, but to also draw attention to the atrocities happening every day around us,” said Ebrahimi.

The actor fled from the Iranian...

The actor will share centre stage with Zar Amir Ebrahimi in Guillaume Renusson’s first feature film, a Baxter Films and Les Films Velvet production set to be sold by WTFilms. Halted after a week of shooting back in March on account of the strict lockdown implemented across France, filming on Guillaume Renusson’s first full-length work Les Survivants finally resumed on Monday 11 January. Shining bright in the cast are Denis Ménochet (recently nominated for the 2020 Best Supporting Role César for By The Grace of God; also well-received in Only The Animals) and French-Iranian actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi who are joined by Victoire Du Bois, Oscar Copp and Italy’s Luca Terracciano. Written by Guillaume Renusson and Clément Peny, the story (which won the Audience Award for Best Screenplay for a First Feature Film at Angers’ European First Film Festival) revolves around Samuel who, in...

French star Vincent Lindon, who toplines Stephane Brizé’s Cannes competition entry “At War,” is set to star in Thierry de Peretti’s “L’Infiltré” (“The Infiltrated”), a thriller based on the true story of Hubert Avoine, a former con who became a French informant in 2007 and infiltrated Mexican drug cartels.

The film was written by de Peretti, based on the recently published book by the same name written by Avoine and French investigative journalist Emmanuel Fansten. In the book, Avoine says France’s Office for Illicit Drug Traffic Control used him to organize its own drug ring.

The movie will be produced by Frédéric Jouve at Paris-based Les Films Velvet, and co-produced by Claude Chelli at Capa Drama, the thriving banner behind “Braquo” and “Versailles.” Both outfits are also partnering with de Peretti and French pay TV channel Canal Plus on a mini-series about Avoine’s journey as an informant.