French schoolhouse-set comedy directed by Mélanie Auffret.
Other Angle has secured deals for French schoolhouse-set comedy Mélanie Auffret’s Sweet Little Things following its market premiere at the EFM.
The Paris and LA-based international sales and distribution company has sold the film – French title: Les Petites Victoires - to Twelve Oaks Pictures in Spain, Nos Lusomundo in Portugal, Pandora in Brazil, Vertigo in Benelux and Pathé in Switzerland.
The sales follow the crowd-pleasing film’s premiere at France’s comedy film fest the Festival l’Alpe d’Huez where it was awarded with the special jury prize and audience award.
Other Angle has secured deals for French schoolhouse-set comedy Mélanie Auffret’s Sweet Little Things following its market premiere at the EFM.
The Paris and LA-based international sales and distribution company has sold the film – French title: Les Petites Victoires - to Twelve Oaks Pictures in Spain, Nos Lusomundo in Portugal, Pandora in Brazil, Vertigo in Benelux and Pathé in Switzerland.
The sales follow the crowd-pleasing film’s premiere at France’s comedy film fest the Festival l’Alpe d’Huez where it was awarded with the special jury prize and audience award.
- 20/02/2023
- por Rebecca Leffler
- ScreenDaily
Film Review: Sagan
PARIS -- The second biopic of a French cultural icon to appear in rapid succession, Diane Kurys's "Sagan" is unlikely to make the kind of splash achieved by last year's "La Vie en Rose". For one thing, it lacks the stirring songs and classic rags-to-riches storyline that ensured the popular appeal of the Piaf epic. But name recognition, solid production values and a commanding performance by Sylvie Testud as the rebellious writer should attract mature audiences worldwide, if not in vast numbers.
Francoise Sagan's novel "Bonjour Tristesse" (1954), written when she was only 18, created the same kind of sensation as J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" had three years earlier in the U.S. Whereas, following his novel's success, Salinger became a recluse, Sagan went into celebrity overdrive, providing the material for a million scandal-sheet articles and ultimately this movie.
Peaking too soon, Sagan the movie like Sagan the writer has nowhere to go but down once the spectacular early success fades. Kurys dutifully charts the descent from youthful hedonism, via a near-fatal car crash, into drink, drugs, ill-health, massive debt and an early, lonely old age.
The writer's riches-to-ruin story is told chronologically and at times a little ploddingly with occasional voice-over ruminations on life, love and literature drawn from her work. Sagan's old friends -- dancer Jacques Chazot (Pierre Palmade) and writer Bernard Frank (Lionel Abelanski) -- stay true, but a husband, publisher Guy Schoeller (Denis Podalydes), comes and rapidly goes, as does Bob Westhoff (William Miller), the father of her son Denis.
Disappointingly, Kurys adopts no point of view and offers virtually no explanation for the failures in Sagan's relationships, most glaringly in the case of the son whom she cruelly rebuffs. As a result it's hard to work up much sympathy for her protagonist's plight.
However, Testud binds the various elements together with an utterly convincing portrayal of the writer in her 50-year campaign of willful self-destruction, from the bright gamin with her elfin features to the somber, wheelchair-bound wreck that she becomes. She is supported by an excellent cast that includes Jeanne Balibar as the fashion writer Peggy Roche -- the love of Sagan's life -- and Arielle Dombasle in a polished cameo as the millionairess-artist here pseudonymously named Astrid who became her final jailor-companion.
Opened: in France: June 11
Production companies: Alexandre Films, EuropaCorp.
Cast: Sylvie Testud, Pierre Palmade, Jeanne Balibar, Denis Podalydes, Arielle Dombasle. Lionel Abelanski, Guillaume Gallienne, William Miller.
Director/producer: Diane Kurys.
Screenwriters: Diane Kurys, Martine Moriconi, Claire Lemarechal.
Director of photography: Michel Abramowicz.
Production design: Alexandra Lassen.
Music: Armand Amar.
Costumes: Nathalie Du Roscoat.
Editor: Sylvie Gadmer.
Sales: EuropaCorp. International.
No MPAA rating, 117 minutes.
Francoise Sagan's novel "Bonjour Tristesse" (1954), written when she was only 18, created the same kind of sensation as J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" had three years earlier in the U.S. Whereas, following his novel's success, Salinger became a recluse, Sagan went into celebrity overdrive, providing the material for a million scandal-sheet articles and ultimately this movie.
Peaking too soon, Sagan the movie like Sagan the writer has nowhere to go but down once the spectacular early success fades. Kurys dutifully charts the descent from youthful hedonism, via a near-fatal car crash, into drink, drugs, ill-health, massive debt and an early, lonely old age.
The writer's riches-to-ruin story is told chronologically and at times a little ploddingly with occasional voice-over ruminations on life, love and literature drawn from her work. Sagan's old friends -- dancer Jacques Chazot (Pierre Palmade) and writer Bernard Frank (Lionel Abelanski) -- stay true, but a husband, publisher Guy Schoeller (Denis Podalydes), comes and rapidly goes, as does Bob Westhoff (William Miller), the father of her son Denis.
Disappointingly, Kurys adopts no point of view and offers virtually no explanation for the failures in Sagan's relationships, most glaringly in the case of the son whom she cruelly rebuffs. As a result it's hard to work up much sympathy for her protagonist's plight.
However, Testud binds the various elements together with an utterly convincing portrayal of the writer in her 50-year campaign of willful self-destruction, from the bright gamin with her elfin features to the somber, wheelchair-bound wreck that she becomes. She is supported by an excellent cast that includes Jeanne Balibar as the fashion writer Peggy Roche -- the love of Sagan's life -- and Arielle Dombasle in a polished cameo as the millionairess-artist here pseudonymously named Astrid who became her final jailor-companion.
Opened: in France: June 11
Production companies: Alexandre Films, EuropaCorp.
Cast: Sylvie Testud, Pierre Palmade, Jeanne Balibar, Denis Podalydes, Arielle Dombasle. Lionel Abelanski, Guillaume Gallienne, William Miller.
Director/producer: Diane Kurys.
Screenwriters: Diane Kurys, Martine Moriconi, Claire Lemarechal.
Director of photography: Michel Abramowicz.
Production design: Alexandra Lassen.
Music: Armand Amar.
Costumes: Nathalie Du Roscoat.
Editor: Sylvie Gadmer.
Sales: EuropaCorp. International.
No MPAA rating, 117 minutes.
- 17/06/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'Train of Life'
French-Romanian director Radu Mihaileanu's film is the second Holocaust-themed comedy to hit U.S. screens this year and, improbably, the second that works. Like its predecessor "Life Is Beautiful", "Train of Life" will turn off some audience members because of its whimsical take on one of the 20th century's greatest horrors. But there's no denying the film's skillfulness in employing Jewish humor, both gentle and broad, to make its points.
Winner of the Audience Award at Sundance, the film recently delighted audiences during its East Coast premiere at the Nantucket Film Festival. It will be released theatrically this year by Paramount Classics.
Resembling a fable told by Sholem Aleichem, the film centers on the inhabitants of an Eastern European village in 1941, who devise a novel way to escape deportation or murder at the hands of oncoming hordes of German soldiers. Their solution, proposed ironically by village fool Shlomo (Lionel Abelanski), is to fake their deportation by using a counterfeit train and having villagers enact the roles of Nazis and victims. The train will wind its way through the countryside until the villagers reach the "promised land."
Their comic preparations include gussying up a dilapidated train, learning to speak German without Yiddish accents, forging documents and having village tailors make authentic-looking German uniforms. Eventually, they leave the village and endure a series of adventures with German soldiers, Communists and traveling Gypsies. Complications, of course, ensue: The villager playing the role of chief Nazi begins to take his role too seriously; resistance fighters pursue the train, unaware of its riders' true identities, etc. There is even romance among younger villagers, though one girl's father won't consider allowing his daughter to become involved with the "son of a Nazi."
Although the film's whimsy quotient is sometimes a bit too high for comfort, director-screenwriter Mihaileanu does a remarkable job making it all work, somehow managing to put forth the comedy without trivializing his subject. The fact that it does not take place in a concentration camp makes it somewhat easier to take than Roberto Benigni's film, which made some uncomfortable. Here, the blending of humor (which sometimes verges on slapstick) and tragedy is handled more skillfully, and the film's ending, which will not be revealed here, goes a long way toward making more palatable all that precedes it.
The performances are excellent, with particularly sterling work from Abelanski as Shlomo, Rufus as the butcher who takes to his Nazi role all too well and Clement Harari as the ever-flustered chief rabbi. The production design and visual look manage to evoke a lost chapter of Jewish history in wonderfully authentic style, and Goran Bregovic's klezmer-flavored music adds further to the period atmosphere.
TRAIN OF LIFE
Paramount Classics
Noe Prods. and Raphael Films
Director-screenwriter: Radu Mihaileanu
Producers: Frederique Dumas, Marc Baschet, Cedomir Kolar, Ludi Boeken, Eric Dussart
Directors of photography: Yorgos Arvanitis, Laurent Daillarnd
Editor: Monique Rysselinck
Original music: Goran Bregovic
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shlomo: Lionel Abelanski
Mordechai: Rufus
Le Rabbi: Clement Harari
Yossi: Michael Muller
Yankele: Bruno Abraham-Kremer
Esther: Agathe De La Fontaine
Schmecht: Johan Leysen
Running time -- 103 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Winner of the Audience Award at Sundance, the film recently delighted audiences during its East Coast premiere at the Nantucket Film Festival. It will be released theatrically this year by Paramount Classics.
Resembling a fable told by Sholem Aleichem, the film centers on the inhabitants of an Eastern European village in 1941, who devise a novel way to escape deportation or murder at the hands of oncoming hordes of German soldiers. Their solution, proposed ironically by village fool Shlomo (Lionel Abelanski), is to fake their deportation by using a counterfeit train and having villagers enact the roles of Nazis and victims. The train will wind its way through the countryside until the villagers reach the "promised land."
Their comic preparations include gussying up a dilapidated train, learning to speak German without Yiddish accents, forging documents and having village tailors make authentic-looking German uniforms. Eventually, they leave the village and endure a series of adventures with German soldiers, Communists and traveling Gypsies. Complications, of course, ensue: The villager playing the role of chief Nazi begins to take his role too seriously; resistance fighters pursue the train, unaware of its riders' true identities, etc. There is even romance among younger villagers, though one girl's father won't consider allowing his daughter to become involved with the "son of a Nazi."
Although the film's whimsy quotient is sometimes a bit too high for comfort, director-screenwriter Mihaileanu does a remarkable job making it all work, somehow managing to put forth the comedy without trivializing his subject. The fact that it does not take place in a concentration camp makes it somewhat easier to take than Roberto Benigni's film, which made some uncomfortable. Here, the blending of humor (which sometimes verges on slapstick) and tragedy is handled more skillfully, and the film's ending, which will not be revealed here, goes a long way toward making more palatable all that precedes it.
The performances are excellent, with particularly sterling work from Abelanski as Shlomo, Rufus as the butcher who takes to his Nazi role all too well and Clement Harari as the ever-flustered chief rabbi. The production design and visual look manage to evoke a lost chapter of Jewish history in wonderfully authentic style, and Goran Bregovic's klezmer-flavored music adds further to the period atmosphere.
TRAIN OF LIFE
Paramount Classics
Noe Prods. and Raphael Films
Director-screenwriter: Radu Mihaileanu
Producers: Frederique Dumas, Marc Baschet, Cedomir Kolar, Ludi Boeken, Eric Dussart
Directors of photography: Yorgos Arvanitis, Laurent Daillarnd
Editor: Monique Rysselinck
Original music: Goran Bregovic
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shlomo: Lionel Abelanski
Mordechai: Rufus
Le Rabbi: Clement Harari
Yossi: Michael Muller
Yankele: Bruno Abraham-Kremer
Esther: Agathe De La Fontaine
Schmecht: Johan Leysen
Running time -- 103 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 01/07/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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