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Auction director/screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York exhibition Look Again: European Paintings 1300–1800 Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

On the afternoon of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema première in New York of Auction, starring Alex Lutz and Louise Chevillotte with Léa Drucker and Olivier Rabourdin of Catherine Breillat’s incomparably daring Last Summer, the director/screenwriter joined me at The Metropolitan Museum of Art to check out Women Dressing Women at the Anna Wintour Costume Institute, before we strolled through the visionary exhibition Look Again: European Paintings 1300–1800.

Inês de Medeiros with Laurence Côte in Jacques Rivette’s La Bande Des Quatre, co-written with Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent

In the second installment with the prolific and acclaimed director, screenwriter, actor, and former film critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, we discuss working again with Laurence Côte (seen as Ginette Kolinka in Olivier Dahan’s all-embracing portrait [film id=41673]Simone: Woman Of.

Aurore (Louise Chevillotte) with André Masson (Alex Lutz) at Scottie’s in Pascal Bonitzer’s mysterious and witty Auction (Le Tableau Volé)

Catherine Breillat’s incomparably daring Last Summer starring Léa Drucker, Samuel Kircher, and Olivier Rabourdin has received four César nominations: Best Director and Adapted Screenplay, Actress (Léa Drucker), Male Revelation (Samuel Kircher in competition with his brother Paul Kircher for Thomas Cailley’s The Animal Kingdom). In the first installment with Pascal Bonitzer, we start out discussing his work on Last Summer which is based on May el-Toukhy’s 2019 film Queen of Hearts and then delve into his latest film, Auction (Le Tableau Volé).

Pascal Bonitzer with Anne-Katrin Titze on Scottie’s in Auction: “It’s an allusion to Vertigo because it’s a great movie. Scottie’s, yes, it’s Sotheby’s, it’s Christie’s, it’s a big auction house.”

Pascal Bonitzer, who put a...

This week’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris will kick off with the Tuesday night world premiere of Pascal Bonitzer’s “Auction” – a ripped-from-the-headlines ensemble drama set in the crosshairs of high art and high finance.

Produced by Sbs Productions and sold by Pyramide International, the art-world saga follows – among others – a hotshot auctioneer, his less-than-reliable assistant, and the working class bloke who sets the narrative in motion upon realizing that his erstwhile innocuous wall art bears the signature of Egon Schiele.

Writer-director Pascal Bonitzer originally thought to explore this world of high-verve auctioneers as a series, but keyed into the story’s singular, cinematic potential thanks to the real-life discovery of Schiele masterworks thought lost during World War II.

“I was fascinated by this collision of two worlds,” Bonitzer tells Variety. “On the one hand, these auctioneers need to play a game – they must seduce potential sellers, wresting artifacts from...

Some 600 French art and entertainment world figures have signed a “counter-petition” decrying moves to defend iconic actor Gérard Depardieu in the face of multiple accusations of sexual assault and one of rape.

The petition described a recent open letter in support of Depardieu, signed by 56 cinema world celebrities, and French President Emmanuel Macron’s public defense of the actor on a talkshow before Christmas as a slap in the face for all victims of sexual violence.

“It is the sinister and perfect illustration of the world which refuses to let things change,” read the letter posted on the site of investigative news website Mediapart on Friday.

“It is the reversal of roles where the executioner places himself as a victim, with the help of his friends. As always in cases of gender-based and sexual violence against women, the ‘presumption...

Alex Lutz stars in Pascal Bontizer’s Auction slated to open the 26th Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris next month Photo: UniFrance If it’s January in the world of le cinéma français it must be the Unifrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema which will open in Paris on 16 January with Pascal Bonitzer’s new film Auction (Le Tableau Volé) featuring a cast of Alex Lutz (whose Strangers By Night closed Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival earlier in the year).

The cast also features Léa Drucker, Louise Chevillotte and Nora Hamzawi. Lutz plays an auctioneer who is alerted to a rare canvas by Egon Schiele, found in Mulhouse, near the Swiss-German borders - but he becomes suspicious about its authenticity and decides to investigate further.

Pascal Bonitzer presents his ninth feature as a director at the Uni-France Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris Photo: UniFrance Bonitzer...

Nightclub-set drama premiered in the Berlinale Panorama earlier this year.

France’s Potemkine Films has picked up Anthony Lapia’s Berlinale Panorama title After from the France and US-based outfit Scriptofilm.

Potemkine is planning a 2024 theatrical release for the drama that opens in a Paris techno club and follows a young lawyer who meets an Uber driver on the dance floor and takes him back to her apartment as their very different lives and views collide as day approaches.

“We bought this film for its raw, radical energy,” said Potemkine’s CEO Nils Bouaziz.” It’s one of the few...

Nightclub-set drama sells to France, Spain, Brazil and Ukraine.

Anthony Lapia’s debut feature After, that world premiered in Berlin’s Panorama, has been sold to Potemkine Films in France who are planning a theatrical release in the first semester of 2024.

The After party will continue with Filmin in Spain, Pandora/Gardia Distribuidora in Brazil and KyivMusicFilm in Ukraine.

Scriptofilm is handling international sales for

the French nightclub-set drama, which kicks off in a Parisian techno club then follows a young lawyer who meets an Uber driver on the dance floor before bringing him back to her apartment as their...

In his staggering 2012 film “Our Children,” Belgian writer-director Joachim Lafosse turned an unthinkable true-life tragedy — the story of a mentally ailing mother who, one hitherto ordinary afternoon, single-handedly murdered all five of her children — into deeply compassionate drama, focusing not on the lurid whats of the event, but its more intimate, less discussed whys. That approach again serves Lafosse well in “A Silence,” another solemn, upsetting domestic chamber piece that lightly fictionalizes and foregrounds the hidden, knotty familial tensions behind a headline-making scandal. In this instance, it’s one disturbing, high-profile court case that begets another, both connected by differing forms of patriarchal abuse — but Lafosse’s interests lie, as ever, less in procedural formalities than in unruly household turmoil.

Outside Belgium, audiences are less likely to be familiar with the case of serial killer Marc Dutroux, convicted in 2004 of the kidnapping, rape and murder of multiple girls — or that of Victor Hissel,...

In the films of Belgian auteur Joachim Lafosse, families tend to be torn apart from the inside, brought down by deep-seated psychological baggage (The Restless, Private Property), extremely bad behavior (Private Lessons, Keep Going) or a history of abuse (Our Children). For his latest feature, A Silence (Un silence), the writer-director has managed to pack all three factors into a single movie, focusing on a bourgeois clan that gradually unravels as past and present offenses come back to haunt them.

Like the rest of Lafosse’s work, it’s a penetrating, artfully made drama, this one starring Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Devos and newcomer Matthieu Galoux, turning in quietly riveting performances. But it also overstretches itself, with too many pivotal events coinciding at once, making the plot less credible while dissipating the emotional effect of its many revelations. After premiering in San Sebastian, the film will continue its festival run, followed by theatrical play in France,...

How did John Cameron Mitchell become the head of this year’s Queer Palm award jury in Cannes? “Sexual favors,” he quips.

While the director of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” (which played out of competition at Cannes) is joking, sexuality is at the heart of one of the world’s most prestigious LGBTQ+ film awards. And with more anti-queer legislation being enacted around the world than at any time in recent memory, the attention it brings to films that humanize this scapegoated population is arguably more important than ever.

“The Queer Palm, the festival and any awards help to dignify work, so that it often can be distributed and sometimes celebrated in its own queer-phobic country,” says Mitchell, who helped start a queer dance night at the American Pavilion in 2004 and DJs when he’s in town. “[The trans-themed] ‘Joyland’ was banned in...

’Jim’s Story’ is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Pierric Bailly.

French filmmaking duo the Larrieu brothers, known for their eccentric comedies are turning to melodrama with Jim’s Story for which Pyramide International has rights and is kicking off sales at the Cannes Market.

Jim’s Story is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Pierric Bailly and stars Sara Forestier, Sara Giraudeau, Karim Leklou, and Valérie Donzelli, director of Cannes Premiere title Just The Two of Us, alongside Noé Abita.

The film is about a family living in the Jura...

Paris-based sales company beefs up slate ahead of Berlinale market.

Paris-based sales company Pyramide International has boarded Anna Novion’s Le Théorème de Marguerite and Marie Garel-Weiss’s Sur La Branche and will kick off pre-sales for the French dramas at the upcoming EFM.

Novion’s Le Théorème de Marguerite stars Ella Rumpf as the titular character, a brilliant mathematics student at France’s top university the Ecole Normale Supérieure. On the day of her thesis presentation, a mistake shakes up all the certainty in her planned-out life and she decides to quit everything and start afresh.

Rumpf notably starred...

This French debut feature follows two people who meet at a Parisian techno nightclub

Screen can reveal the trailer for Anthony Lapia’s After, set to world premiere in Berlin’s Panorama section.

This French debut feature follows two people who meet at a Parisian techno nightclub before going home together as their different lives and views collide as day approaches. Director Lapia also wrote and produced with his company Société Acéphale alongside Salt For Sugar Films.

The journey to the Berlinale official selection has been a Cinderella story of sorts for the completely independent collaborative effort five years in the making.

Sepideh Farsi’s “La Sirène” (“The Siren”) is opening the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand.

The program, which comprises 35 films from 30 countries, including 28 world premieres and 11 debuts, includes new films by Patric Chiha, İlker Çatak, Frauke Finsterwalder, Maite Alberdi, Milad Alami and Apolline Traoré. They feature a galaxy of well-known protagonists and actors such as Joan Baez, Jafar Panahi, Payman Maadi, George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Fan Bingbing, Sandra Hüller and Susanne Wolff.

Panorama Selections

“After”

by Anthony Lapia | with Louise Chevillotte, Majd Mastoura, Natalia Wiszniewska

France

World premiere | Debut film

“All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White”

by Babatunde Apalowo | with Tope Tedela, Riyo David, Martha Ehinome Orhiere, Uchechika Elumelu, Floyd Anekwe

Nigeria

World premiere | Debut film

“And, Towards Happy Alleys”

by Sreemoyee Singh | with Jafar Panahi, Nasrin Soutodeh, Jinous Nazokkar, Farhad Kheradmand, Aida Mohammadkhani

India

World premiere | Debut film | Documentary

“La Bête dans la...

London-set revenge thriller Femme, starring George MacKay and Candyman actor Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, has been selected for the Berlinale’s Panorama strand.

It was among a raft of fresh additions to the festival’s Panorama, Generation and Berlinale Special strands announced on Wednesday.

The picture is co-directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping and is based on their 2021 BAFTA-nominated short film of the same name.

Stewart-Jarrett plays a drag queen whose life is destroyed by a homophobic attack and then plots revenge on one of the perpetrators (MacKay) when he spots him in a gay sauna.

The 21 new Panorama titles also include France-based Austrian director Patric Chiha’s The Beast In The Jungle.

A contemporary adaptation of Henry James’s 1903 novella of the same name, the drama follows a man and woman who frequent a huge nightclub for 25 years in anticipation of a mysterious event.

The cast features Anaïs Demoustier,...

Pyramide International has boarded “Last Summer,” an erotic thriller by daring French director Catherine Breillat, which is being produced by Sbs Productions, the leading French banner behind Paul Verhoeven’s Oscar nominated “Elle.”

“Last Summer” boasts a strong cast led by Léa Drucker (“Custody”), Olivier Rabourdin (“Benedetta”), Clotilde Courau (“In The Shadow of Women”) and newcomer Samuel Kircher.

The Paris-based company, whose sales team is headed by Agathe Mauruc, is teasing the project with a three-minute promo at the Unifrance Rendez-vous taking place in Paris this week.

Drucker stars as Anne, a brilliant lawyer who lives happily in Paris with her husband Pierre and their 6- and 8-year-old daughters. One day, Theo, 17, Pierre’s son from a previous marriage, moves in with them. Anne is unsettled by Theo’s presence and gradually engages in a passionate relationship with him, putting her career and family life in danger.

A master at...

Selected actors will vie for five coveted spots in each of the most promising actor and actress categories.

France’s Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques, which runs the prestigious César awards, has unveiled its annual Revelations shortlist of local rising stars. They will vie for five coveted spots in each of the most promising actor and actress categories that will make the official nominees selection ahead of the 48th annual Cesars ceremony in Paris on February 24.

Among this year’s breakout stars are Saint Omer actresses Guslagie Malanda and Kayije Kagame, Cannes’ title Forever Young stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Clara Bretheau and Sofiane Bennacer,...

Chicago – In an extraordinary flash of timing, the new French film “Happening” gets a general release in select theaters on May 13th, right in the midst of an another abortion debate in the U.S. The story of a young woman seeking the procedure in 1963 features Anamarie Varolomei and is adapted by director Audrey Diwan. They spoke to HollywoodChicago.com.

Happening” is an adaptation of a notable French novel, written by Annie Ermaux, about a young woman trying desperately to find an abortion provider in the illegal era of 1963 France (they’ll throw both the seeker and the provider in jail). Anamaria Vartolomei is Anne, a whipsmart and ambitious working class student who seeks a different world beyond her roots. When she becomes pregnant through a temporary encounter, she desperately seeks the procedure to make sure her circumstance remains with her.

Anamaria Vartolomei as Anne in ‘Happening’

Photo credit: IFC Films

Director Audrey Diwan,...

"I'd like a child one day, but not instead of a life." IFC has debuted the official US trailer for an acclaimed French drama titled Happening, the second feature directed by filmmaker Audrey Diwan. This initially premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival last year, where it won the Golden Lion top prize at the end of the fest. It also stopped by the 2022 Sundance Film Festival last month and picked up more rave reviews. Adapted from Annie Ernaux's semi-autobiographical book, Happening follows Anne, a bright young student who faces an unwanted pregnancy while abortion was still illegal in 1960s France. There are more and more abortion films recently because filmmakers are turning to art to express their concerns about the growing anti-abortion movement that has been taking over recently. These films are vital and necessary. Happening stars Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet Klein, Luàna Bajrami, Louise Orry-Diquéro, and also Louise Chevillotte.

Happening Review — Happening (2021) Film Review from the 44th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie directed by Audrey Diwan and starring Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet Klein, Luana Bajrami, Louise Orry-Diquero, Louise Chevillotte, Pio Marmai, Sandrine Bonnaire, Leonor Oberson, Anna Mouglalis, Madeleine Baudot, Alice de Lencquesaing and Fabrizio Rongione. Set in the early 1960’s, the [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Happening: An Unflinching, Well Acted Look at a Delicate Topic [Sundance 2022]...

Audrey Diwan’s “Happening,” one of the three shortlisted films to represent France for the upcoming 94th Academy Awards, will make its North American premiere at the Chicago Film Festival as part of the Global Currants and Women in Cinema program on Saturday, Oct. 17.

“Happening” (L’événement) had its world premiere at the 78th Venice Film Festival, winning the Golden Lion, making Diwan one of only five women who have ever won since 1949.

Just acquired by IFC Films and Film Nation, the film is an adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s eponymous novel that looks back on her experience with abortion when it was still illegal in France in the 1960s. “Diwan’s ‘Happening’ is a timely exploration of the choices women have to make and is a powerful appeal for personal freedoms,” said Chicago International Film Festival Artistic Director Mimi Plauché.

“Audrey Diwan’s quietly devastating sophomore feature is the latest...

The feature is adapted from French writer Annie Ernaux 2019 on her illegal abortion in 1964.

French novelist, screenwriter and director Audrey Diwan broke into cinema as the co-writer of a series of thrillers including Paris Under Watch, The Connection and recent Cannes selection and box office hit Bac Nord with her former partner Cédric Jimenez.

She arrives in competition at the Venice Film Festival this year with her second solo feature Happening. Adapted from the 2019 work of respected French writer Annie Ernaux, it recounts the author’s struggle to get an abortion as a student in 1964, 11 years before abortion was legalised...

The marketing wasn’t lying. Benedetta, the latest from legendary Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, really is an epic sass-fest in which obscenely attractive nuns play power games against each other for God’s approval. On a higher level, though, it’s another taste of the director’s distinct blend of irreverence we’ve enjoyed since Robocop.

Starring Virginie Efira as the titular nun, whose lifelong devotion sprang out of numerous childhood encounters with the divine, Benedetta largely focuses on the turbulent years in which she acrimoniously rose to the summit of the Theatine convent in Pescia, Tuscany. But the story really begins when Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia), a vulnerable peasant girl whose life is saved by entry to the Theatines, shows Benedetta a slightly different way to experience holiness.

Mother Superior Felicita (Charlotte Rampling) is none the wiser, but her daughter Christina (Louise Chevillotte) knows something is up. Cue chaos, intrigue...

At the Cannes Film Festival press conference for Paul Verhoeven’s competition title Benedetta this morning, director and cast fielded a series of questions about the film’s use of nudity and sex while Verhoeven bristled at the suggestion Benedetta is in any way blasphemous. “I do not understand really how you can be blasphemous about something that happened… You cannot basically change history after the fact. You can talk about that was wrong or not, but you cannot change history. I think the word blasphemy for me in this case is stupid,” he said.

The steamy period piece, which premiered last night, is the true story of Sister Benedetta Carlini, a 17th Century abbess whose claims of mystical visions and miracles were investigated by the Catholic church in a trial that lasted from 1619-23 and resulted in her imprisonment. Deadline’s Todd McCarthy described it in his review as...

Paul Verhoeven’s third entry into the comp after 1992’s Basic Instinct and 2016’s Elle was the long awaited Benedetta (hip surgery followed by the pandemic has delayed the release) starring Charlotte Rampling, Daphne Patakia, Louise Chevillotte and Virginie Efira as the nun that is the most fun.

We still have some grades coming in, but with a current average of 2.9, some critic found this to be blasphemous or were more than amused. It’s pretty much two camps here with the love it or hate it.

Click on the grid below for a larger version and latest updates!

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Benedetta is an upcoming biographical drama directed and co-written by acclaimed filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, perhaps best known for Robocop and Starship Troopers. The movie stars Virginie Efira as Benedetta Carlini, a novice nun in the 17th century who joins an Italian convent in Pescia, Tuscany, who then begins a love affair with another woman. Benedetta will have its premiere at Cannes, and was picked up for U.S. distribution by IFC Films.

The film is based on the 1986 non-fiction novel "Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy" by Judith C. Brown. Paul Verhoeven brings back most of his key crew members from his previous film Elle, (which co-starred Efira), producer Saïd Ben Saïd, writer David Birke, composer Anne Dudley, and editor Job ter Burg. You can take a look at the short teaser below.

Benedetta is scheduled to premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d'Or.

“Did you think you were making a French independent film?” rails literary agent Vincent (Mikaël Chirinian) in French independent film “The World After Us.” He’s angry with his callow young client, Labidi (Aurélien Gabrielli), because Labidi has abruptly changed tack on a novel that’s already been optioned, and has also changed its title to, inevitably, “The World After Us.” Louda Ben Salah-Cazanas’ directorial debut is sensitively made, well observed and beautifully performed, but as this rather desultory stab at reflexivity suggests, it doesn’t have many surprises in store.

Where it really works is as a character portrait of the young aspiring author, to great measure aided by Gabrielli’s soulful, faintly Charles Aznavour vibe and tamped-down, off-kilter charm. Labidi, whose doting and delightful working-class Muslim parents (Saadia Bentaïeb and Jacques Nolot) run a small café in Lyon, lives in Paris. Actually, he basically squats there, sleeping on...

Le monde après nous is a short, bittersweet feature about a young writer from Lyons, Labidi (Aurélien Gabrielli), trying to make it in Paris. The director has some fun looking at the lot of the impoverished writer: gone is the freezing garret under the gables of nineteenth-century Paris, to be replaced with the decidedly unromantic ‘studio’ apartment Labidi shares with his pal. We see the pair sharing the cramped quarters, barely big enough to accommodate a single bed and room for a sleeping bag on the floor. It would be safe to say that Labidi is a writer of the struggling variety.

However, things start to look up for Labidi when he encounters Elisa (Louise Chevillotte) in a bar. He asks for a cigarette – despite not being a smoker – and a love story is ignited. He’s a writer, she’s studying acting; money is tight, but they decide to look for a place together.

Produced by Les Idiots, sold by Be For Films and starring Aurélien Gabrielli and Louise Chevillotte, the filmmaker’s first feature will enjoy its premiere in Berlin's Panorama line-up. Louda Ben Salah-Cazanas has made a promising entrance into the world of international cinema with his debut feature film The World After Us, a work which has been selected for the 71st Berlinale’s Panorama line-up and is set to enjoy its world premiere in the festival’s Industry Event (running 1 – 5 March).Having turned heads with his short films, especially Genève (screened in Clermont-Ferrand’s national competition last year), the director’s latest venture sees him putting together a cast comprising Aurélien Gabrielli (who made an appearance in A Violent Life and played the lead in Quand je ne dors pas), Louise Chevillotte, Saadia...

Benedetta

Produced by Saïd Ben Saïd

Directed by Paul Verhoeven

Written by David Birke, Paul Verhoeven

Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Lambert Wilson, Virginie Efira, Olivier Rabourdin, Clotilde Courau, Daphne Patakia, Quentin D’Hainaut, Alexia Chardard, Louise Chevillotte

Cinematographer: Jeanne Lapoirie

Release Date/Prediction: Insert shooting date and location and prediction. If you used specific links copy and paste and I’ll copy and paste them.

…...

Philippe Garrel’s modus operandi since 2013’s Jealousy has been unfussy, melancholic, black-and-white tales of Parisian men in the throes of romance, typically under 75 minutes. His latest, The Salt of Tears, which played in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, stretches to 100 minutes, but retains much of the lo-fi monochrome aesthetic, here centering on a cocky, shaggily attractive 20-something whose predilection for spurning women won’t win admirers from the MeToo generation.

But The Salt of Tears, with its title that sounds like a philosophical tract by Sartre, is a distant, ruminative film that refrains from wallowing in snide judgments of its characters. Perhaps to its fault, it’s a sober, adult, sincere film that seeks to consider some truth of the fallacy present in all human relationships.

The story follows trainee carpenter Luc through a trio of romantic misadventures, as he moves from the French countryside for something akin to a sentimental Parisian education.

One bold gesture the new Berlinale team has made at the festival this year is to put Philippe Garrel back in competition. His last two movies, small films with grand sensitivity, have premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, a fitting place for their discretion but not necessarily the director’s stature. His new film, The Salt of Tears, is no different in scale, effectively embracing cinema’s affinity for, in literary terms, short stories rather than novels. Like his last film, Lover for a Day, we find Garrel channeling the energy of young actors cast mostly from the acting classes he teaches to bring a light-footed freshness to his atmosphere and storytelling. And like his two most recent films, it has a swift, sketch-like quality that sometimes works well and sometimes doesn’t with the film’s essentially fable-like, rather than realistic storytelling. This friction between the exactitude required...

Philippe Garrel’s ‘The Salt Of Tears’ split opinion amongst our critics.

Kelly Reichardt has hit the front in the early stages of Screen’s Berlin 2020 Competition jury grid with her latest film First Cow.

It received consistent scores from all seven critics, with nothing lower than a two (average) and this year’s first score of four (excellent) from Screen’s own critic, culminating in a 2.7 average.

The film, which premiered at Telluride last year, centres on a cook who signs on to serve a party of fur trappers in the Pacific Northwest, forming a friendship with a Chinese immigrant.

Handsome twentysomething Luc is a trainee joiner, a craft inherited from his doting single dad: a man at once proud of his son’s continuation of their trade, and hopeful that he’ll do something greater with it. When Luc asks his father if he ever wanted to design furniture rather than simply build it, the reply is simple and resigned: “It’s all been done already.” Six decades and 28 features into his career, French writer-director Philippe Garrel seems to be saying something similar with his latest, “The Salt of Tears”: A minor romantic roundelay that deviates little from the essential template of his last three films, it’s very much the work of an artist less preoccupied with innovation than with signature craftsmanship.

Which is not to say “The Salt of Tears,” even within its narrow bracket of ambition, is an especially careful or well-turned example of Garrel’s form.

It takes a few beats to get through the quaint setup in “The Salt of Tears” and recognize its protagonist is an asshole. That’s Luc (sullen newcomer Logann Antuofermo), the young aspiring cabinetmaker at the center of French director Philippe Garrel’s latest stab at generational angst and ill-fated love. Over the course of this spry black-and-white sketch of a movie, Luc seduces one woman, rekindles love with another, and rejects them both for a third before everything finally collapses on top of him. There’s not a lot of sophistication to Luc’s arc, as his self-centered universe of problems accelerates to grating extremes, but

Few filmmakers have held as tight to their themes as Garrel, who has cranked out intimate portraits of young men doomed by delusions of romantic grandeur for decades. Though the filmmaker technically completed his so-called “trilogy of love” with 2017’s “Lover for a Day,...

In an immensely promising Berlinale lineup, one of our most-anticipated films is from French master Philippe Garrel. Following 2017’s Lover for a Day, he’s now back with The Salt of Tears (aka Le sel des larmes), which is, of course, shot in black-and-white and features themes of first love and shifting romance.

Starring Logan Antuofermo, Oulaya Amamra, Andre Wilms, Louise Chevillotte, and Souheila Yacoub, the film specifically follows a young man’s short-lived romance in Paris, one which he still holds on to even after returning to his hometown and striking up another. Clocking in at 100 minutes and set for an April 8 release in France, the first trailer and poster have now arrived.

See the trailer below and we’ll update if English subtitles arrive.

Luc travels to Paris for the first time to sit the entrance exam for a carpentry school. There he meets Djemila, a young worker...

The Berlinale lineup already includes films from Jia Zhangke, Matías Piñeiro, and more, but now the competition slate has arrived and it’s an incredibly promising selection. Headed by Carlo Chatrian, it includes many of our most-anticipated films of the year with Christian Petzold’s Undine, Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran, Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days, Philippe Garrel’s The Salt of Tears, Abel Ferrara’s Siberia, and Caetano Gotardo & Marco Dutra’s All the Dead Ones, plus recent festival favorites: Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow and Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

Check out the lineup below and return for our coverage.

Competition

Berlin Alexanderplatz

Germany / Netherlands

by Burhan Qurbani

with Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król, Annabelle Mandeng, Nils Verkooijen, Richard Fouofié Djimeli

World premiere

Dau. Natasha

Germany / Ukraine / United Kingdom / Russian Federation

by Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel

with Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo,...

The Berlin International Film Festival on Wednesday morning revealed the main competition lineup and gala selections for festival’s 70th edition.

The festival, which begins February 20, will screen 18 films in competition, including movies from Sally Potter, Kelly Reichardt, and Eliza Hittman. Six are from female directors.

Among the gala presentations is Pixar’s” Onward.” The Dan Scanlon-helmed urban fantasy includes the voices of Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Mel Rodriguez, Kyle Bornheimer, Lena Waithe, and Ali Wong.

Here is the complete list:

Competition

“Berlin Alexanderplatz” (Germany/Netherlands)

Director: Burhan Qurbani

Cast: Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król, Annabelle Mandeng, Nils Verkooijen, and Richard Fouofié Djimeli

“Dau. Natasha” (Germany/Ukraine/United Kingdom/Russia)

Directors: Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel

Cast: Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo, Alexei Blinov, and Luc Bigé

“Domangchin yeoja” (“The Woman Who Ran”) (South Korea)

Director: Hong Sangsoo

Cast: Kim Minhee,...

The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled its 2020 line-up, with 18 films playing in competition from directors such as Abel Ferrara, Sally Potter, Christian Petzold, Hong Sangsoo, Kelly Reichardt and Eliza Hittman.

Abel Ferrara’s Willem Dafoe starrer “Siberia” is a world premiere in competition, as is Sally Potter’s “The Roads Not Taken.”

Among the U.S. films at the Berlinale, Reichardt’s “First Cow” is an international premiere, and so too is Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always.”

Pixar’s latest animation, “Onward”, also has its international premiere out of competition in the Special Galas section.

Previous Berlin Silver Bear winner Christian Petzold’s latest, “Undine”, world premieres, while Iranian director Mohammed Rasoulof, who is not allowed to travel outside his home country, world premieres his latest, “There is No Evil.”

Six out of the 18 films in competition are helmed by female directors.

The 70th edition of the festival...

Le sel des larmes

2020 will see the premiere of the 27th feature by French auteur Philippe Garrel with The Salt of Tears, which reunites him with scribes Jean-Claude Carriere and Arlette Langmann. Dp Renato Berta (who lensed Garrel’s last two feature) is on board, as is producer Edouard Weil (who previously produced A Burning Hot Summer and Frontier of Dawn for the director). Garrel’s youthful cast consists of Louise Chevillotte (who made her debut in Lover for a Day and has since starred in Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms and Verhoeven’s upcoming Benedetta), Oulaya Amamra (Cesar winner for 2017’s Divines), Souheila Yacoub, Andre Wilms and newcomer Logann Antuofermo.…...

Yoav (Tom Mercier) is speed-walking down the rainy streets of Paris, past cafes and cars and people reading newspapers; he’s moving so fast that the camera can barely keep up with him. Once he finds the apartment he’s going to crash in —and the key to the front door under the mat — the twentysomething Israeli makes himself at home. Halfway through some interrupted mid-shower onanism, Yoav runs into the bare living room, slips on the hardwood floor…and finds that everything from his clothes to his sleeping bag has just been stolen.

How much indulgence might you feel for a young man going through an existential identity crisis? “Synonyms,” the kinetic new drama from writer-director Nadav Lapid (the original “The Kindergarten Teacher”), is so wrapped up in the intense emotions of its millennial protagonist that tolerance becomes not only an expectation but also a requirement.

Though often surrounded by people, Yoav (powerful newcomer Tom Mercier) is also very much alone in his search for self-definition. He arrives in Paris after a traumatic stint in the Israeli army, to stay in a gorgeous but apparently abandoned rental apartment. His belongings are stolen immediately, which is particularly inconvenient since he’s just taken a freezing bath and is naked.

The chill nearly kills him, but his wealthy young neighbors, Caroline (Louise Chevillotte) and Emile, find him just in time. They rescue him, in a sense, warming him up and giving him clothes and money.

by Chris Feil

Unfolding with the wonder of a contemporary fable, Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms takes a sometimes witty but often breathtaking approach to displaced national identity. Already awarded the Berlin International Film Festival’s Golden Bear, the film is an unpredictable existential examination of redefining oneself in a world that exploits you, and the limitations of willful self-reinvention.

Newcomer Tom Mercier stars as Yoav, a young Iscraeli man relocating to Paris after a term in the military. He’s quickly robbed of all his belongings while squatting in a posh apartment, begging for help naked throughout the building before being found near death by young couple Caroline and Emile (Louise Chevillotte and Quentin Dolmaire). They possess the prototypically French persona that Yoav wants to adopt, and are all too generous and willing to play welcoming committee...

"Gosh, life is sublime." Kino Lorber has released the official Us trailer for an award-winning indie drama titled Synonyms, aka Synonymes, from Israeli writer/director Nadav Lapid. This premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year and it won the Golden Bear, the top prize there, which it definitely deserves (here's my review). Based on the real life experiences of Lapid, Synonyms explores the challenges of putting down roots in a new place. Tom Mercier stars as Yoav, an Israeli man who shows up in Paris, France. His "attempts to find himself awaken past demons and open up an existential abyss in this tragicomic puzzle that wisely knows how to keep its secrets." Also starring Quentin Dolmaire and Louise Chevillotte. The film is also adored by most critics, with David Ehrlich (read his review) describing it as a "sui generis work of tormented genius." Any & every cinephile needs to...

Update: Images removed at the request of Wild Bunch.

With a prolific streak like few others directors this decade thus far, we’ve been getting a new (uniformly excellent) Philippe Garrel film every two years like clockwork. While the French director’s latest project, The Salt of Tears, didn’t show up at Cannes like his previous two films, might he be eying a Venice premiere instead? We’ll find out soon, but in the meantime, the first batch of stills and synopsis have arrived, courtesy of Wild Bunch and Rectangle Productions.

See them above and below for the film starring Logan Antuofermo, Oulaya Amamra, Andre Wilms, Louise Chevillotte, Souheila Yacoub. While we wait for his new feature, his son Louis Garrel’s next directorial effort A Faithful Man will arrive this month in the United States, and one can see the trailer below as well.

Luc travels to Paris...

Slate also includes four new festival title acquisitions and five previously announced Palme d’Or contenders.

Wild Bunch will launch sales on eight new titles at Cannes this year including Sylvie Verheyde’s Madame Claude about an infamous French brothel owner and Lou Ye’s upcoming black and white thriller Saturday Fiction.

The slate also features two recent acquisitions out of the Official Selection as well as two new Cannes Critics’ Week films alongside the five previously announced Palme d’Or contenders.

Verheyde’s Madame Claude stars Karole Rocher as the real-life, late Paris brothel owner whose clients allegedly included John F.

Slate also includes four new festival title acquisitions and five previously announced Palme d’Or contenders.

Wild Bunch will launch sales on eight new titles at Cannes this year including Sylvie Verheyde’s Madame Claude about an infamous French brothel owner and Lou Ye’s upcoming black and white thriller Saturday Fiction.

The slate also features two recent acquisitions out of the Official Selection as well as two new Cannes Critics’ Week films alongside the five previously announced Palme d’Or contenders.

Verheyde’s Madame Claude stars Karole Rocher as the real-life, late Paris brothel owner whose clients allegedly included John F.

Relocation becomes dislocation in director Nadav Lapid’s intense, beguiling Synonyms. Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, the story follows a young Israeli man who moves to Paris in the hope of shedding his past and remolding his identity, yet instead finds his sense of self chipped away at. This is an unsettling film about nationality and how society shapes people in a way that is difficult to entirely shake off.

For Yoav (spellbinding first-time actor Tom Mercier) Paris is the antithesis of everything with which he’s been brought up. A liberal, tolerant, sexy place, France is not the militaristic nation state that Yoav takes his home country to be. “Israel will die before I die,” he exclaims, “I’ll be buried in Pere Lachaise!” He refuses to speak Hebrew and buries a bulky French dictionary under his arm as he goes about town–the...

Tom Mercier in SynonymsNow that the 69th Berlin International Film Festival has concluded it is even easier to see that startlingly few films in the centerpiece competition were able to escape the doldrums of average, straightforward and unsurprising cinema. There was a chance, in the lead-up to the closing ceremony, that the awards would double down on an unforgivably mediocre selection, yet as the festival ended there was a blast of hope that symbolically bodes well for next year, the 70th edition, to be newly headed by Locarno Festival’s former Artistic Director, Carlo Chatrian. German director Angela Schanalec, whose last film The Dreamed Path was at Locarno in 2016, took home the prize for best director for one of the festival’s best films, I Was at Home, But..., in a remarkable gesture of support for an approach to filmmaking that is far away from commercial concerns. And the Golden Bear went to Synonyms,...

Nadav Lapid’s astonishing, maddening, brilliant, hilarious, obstinate, and altogether unmissable new film “Synonyms” opens with a sequence that might be described as a sideways attempt at psychic suicide. A twentysomething Israeli traveler named Yoav (extraordinary newcomer Tom Mercier) strides through the rainy streets of Paris in a shaky low-def shot that resembles paparazzi footage of a celebrity trying to leave the press behind. He storms into one of those gorgeous old buildings along the banks of the Seine, digs out the hide-a-key, and opens the door to a cold and cavernous apartment. There’s no couch, no bed, no furniture of any kind, but Yoav doesn’t seem to mind the monastic vibe; the camera relaxes into the refined grammar of contemporary European cinema as he surveys the empty space.

Yoav strips nude in the tub, revealing a soldier’s body, and yanks at his genitals. Then, some rustling from the next room over.