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Léonor Serraille has had a career most young directors would dream of — winning the Camera d’Or for her 2017 debut “Montparnasse Bienvenue” before launching her sophomore feature, “Mother and Son,” from Cannes’ competition in 2022. And for just as long, the thirty-something auteur has kept a healthy distance from her own high profile, keeping off social media and living outside of Paris, while often playing cagey about her success.

“For years, I never even told people that I worked in cinema,” Serraille says. “I like being incognito, and I like being a part of a crowd. [To do this job] you can’t look at others from above; you have to remain at eye level, and you have to blend in.”

Those instincts are on stark display in Serraille’s Golden Bear contender, “Ari.” Shot on Super 16 film stock and styled to accent raw emotion, bereft of makeup or vanity, the director’s latest project...

For all the screenwriting manuals and maxims that insist on character goals and motivations and missions and all those things we’re supposed to have in real life too, there can be something riveting about a character with no plan at all. We never know quite where Ari, the eponymous protagonist of writer-director Léonor Serraille’s excellent third feature, is headed from one scene to the next, not least because he doesn’t either. Quarter-life drift was also the defining condition of Serraille’s 2017 debut “Jeune Femme,” a Cannes Camera d’Or winner that prompted critical comparisons — some favorable, some less so — to Agnès Varda and Lena Dunham alike. But where that film was zingy and vigorous in its youthful malaise, “Ari” turns down the brightness a bit to portray a young, unmoored trainee teacher who gives the film a more melancholic center than its predecessor.

Yet the film is...

With only a trio of films under her belt, writer-director Léonor Serraille has carved her own special niche within the overcrowded world of French arthouse cinema. Her 2017 breakthrough, Montparnasse Bienvenüe, won Cannes’ prestigious Camera d’Or while confirming the rising status of its lead actress, Laetitia Dosch. Her second effort, the moving and underrated immigrant drama Mother and Son, premiered in Cannes’ main competition, but never quite gained traction abroad.

And while Seraille’s third feature, the partially improvised, shot-on-the-fly character study, Ari, feels in many ways like a more minor effort compared to the others, it continues to showcase the director’s ability to coax strong performances out of both amateur and confirmed actors — including the film’s arresting lead, Andaric Manet.

A sort of male companion piece to Montparnasse Bienvenüe, which chronicled the roller coaster life of a young woman scraping by in the City of Lights, Ari...

Leonor Serraille’s “Ari,” one of the most anticipated European films slated to world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, has been boarded by Pamela Leu’s Be For Films.

“Ari” marks Serraille’s follow up to “Mother and Son” (“Un petit frere”) which competed at Cannes in 2022. Her feature debut, “Jeune Femme,” won the Golden Camera at Cannes in 2017.

Be For Films will kick off sales on the film at the European Film Market running alongside the Berlinale.

Serraille’s third feature, “Ari” revolves around a 27-year-old student teacher who collapses right in the middle of a school inspector’s visit. “Angry with him for being a failure, his father kicks him out of the house. Emotionally raw, and alone in the city, Ari reluctantly forces himself to rekindle his relationships with old friends. As his memories of the previous months successively ebb and flow, Ari discovers...

Nineteen features in competition, Artistic Director Tricia Tuttle loaded up on some mainstay auteurs with the likes of Richard Linklater, Michel Franco, Hong Sangsoo, Radu Jude, Lucile Hadžihalilović and Golden Bear winner Vivian Qu measuring up against Léonor Serraille (Cannes Camera d’Or winning Montparnasse Bienvenue), Gabriel Mascaro (Venice Special Jury Prize winning Boi Neon), Mary Bronstein (who will premiere her sophomore feature in Sundance this week) and first-time filmmaker / Ida scribe Rebecca Lenkiewicz. The 75th edition of the Berlin Film Festival beings of February 13th.

Of the selections, here are titles we’ve been keeping close tabs on.…...

Can animals act? Sensible people would say not: Our four-legged friends can’t read a script or construct a character, and if they come across charismatically on screen, that’s simply down to obeying commands, plus the deft touch of an editor. The more whimsically accommodating among us would say those last two points are true of some human actors too; Hitchcock, with his infamous “actors are cattle” quip, suggested as much. Either way, it’s hard to watch Kodi, the ragged, hungry-eyed canine star of “Dog on Trial,” without sensing, whether by sheer good fortune or some mysterious process of empathy, a genuine performance afoot.

Called upon to jump, slump, tremble and even (sort of) sing, with an expressive range spanning untethered aggression and resigned melancholy, the biscuit-colored crossbreed hits every mark required of him by Laetitia Dosch’s endearingly eccentric directorial debut, and emerges as its most compelling element.

From Sept. 25 to Oct. 2, the 20th edition of Mexico’s Monterrey Film Festival will screen nearly 100 films, culled from world-class festivals, including Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca and SXSW. The festival will stage Mexican, Latin American and world premieres of fiction and documentary features, many by first-time film directors. Below are 10 outstanding titles:

“The Blue Star,” Javier Macipe, Spain, Argentina (Mexican premiere)

An Ibero-American co-production between Fernando Bovaira’s Mod Producciones of Spain (“Biutiful”), Macipe’s El Pez Amarillo, Cimarrón (“Society of the Snow”) and Prisma, Argentina, the 90s-set film centers on Mauricio, a famous Spanish rock musician who decides to travel across Latin America in a bid to reconnect with his roots. He meets Don Carlos, an aging musician who’s struggling despite having composed some of his country’s most famous folk songs. Carlos, like a musical Master Miyagi, takes in the visitor, and together they form a quirky, Quixote-like duo destined for commercial failure.

The Swiss/French “Dog on Trial” is set to disrupt, move and entertain the Croisette from what is revealed in a first clip from sales outfit MK2 Films, exclusively shared with Variety.

The film world premieres at Cannes Un Certain Regard May 19.

Writer/actor-turned-director Laetitia Dosch, who delivered what Variety reviewer Peter Debruge called a ‘blazing-wildfire performance’ in the 2017 Camera d’or winner “Jeune Femme”, is herself taking a chance this year on the coveted award. Meanwhile Cosmos the Dog (aka Kodi in the film) will battle for the leather dog collar Palme Dog win.

As the main protagonist Alice, Dosch wears an attorney’s gown to defend the four-legged Cosmos, accused of multiple bite attacks. Known for taking up lost causes, she will rise to the challenge, confront the legal system and advocate both for animal rights and women’s rights.

Next to Dosch and the dog Kodi, the...

In what looks to be another robust year in the making, the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will bring together several iconic filmmakers, including Francis Ford Coppola with “Megalopolis” starring Adam Driver, George Miller with “Furiosa” starring Anya Taylor-Joy, as well as George Lucas who will be feted with an honorary Palme d’Or. Kevin Costner will also be on hand with the first installment of his Western epic “Horizon, an American Saga.”

Some of the high-profile films in the pipeline for this year’s competition include Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” a stylized three-part story set in the present that reunites the “Poor Things” helmer with Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe; Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” with Richard Gere, based on a novel by the late Russell Banks (“Affliction”); Jacques Audiard’s musical melodrama “Emilia Perez” starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez; Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” with...

Both features will form part of Paris-based mk2 films’ line-up at Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris event this week.

mk2 films, the sales outfit behind Anatomy Of A Fall and How To Have Sex, has acquired Jonathan Millet’s thriller Ghost Trail and Laetitia Dosch’s high-concept comedy Who Let the Dog Bite? ahead of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema that opens tomorrow in Paris.

Inspired by real-life events, Ghost Trail is about a Syrian man pursuing some of the people who perpetrated horrors in the name of the regime during the civil war. His mission takes him to France...

Mother and Son was met to great critical acclaim when it premiered in Cannes last year, and finally it now makes its way to audiences this side of the Channel, and to mark the occasion we had the pleasure in speaking to filmmaker Léonor Serraille in Paris at the beginning of the year.

We discuss the themes of the film, the casting of her leading woman Annabelle Lengronne, and exploring the socio-political situation in France in regards to the relationship between the establishment and minorities. We also talk about the success of her preceding feature Jeune Femme, and what sort of impact that had on this project.

I was reading that this story has been with you for some time, why was now the right time to tell it?

It was my second movie and I was very stressed and I maybe wanted not to make another movie, so my...

“My Life As a Zucchini” director Claude Barras has set up his latest stop-motion animated feature, “Savages!”

Production company Gebeka International — a Hildegarde-Goodfellas company formed in 2021 — and production, financing and sales studio Anton are behind the project, which will be written by Barras and Catherine Paille (“Magnetic Beasts”). The project will be shopped to buyers in Cannes next week.

“Savages!” follows the emotional journey of a girl, her father and a rescued baby orangutan. The film has a strong environmental and conservationist message, exploring the crisis of the destruction of rainforests.

An official synopsis for the film reads as follows: “In Borneo, at the edge of the tropical forest, Kéria is given a baby orangutan that has been rescued from the palm oil plantation where her father works. At the same time, Kéria’s younger cousin Selaï comes to live with her and her father as he seeks refuge from...

L.A.-based Outsider Pictures, a U.S. distribution hub for emerging Spanish-language cinema, has secured North American rights to 2020 Ventana Sur Primer Corte title “Fogaréu,” the debut feature from burgeoning Brazilian director Flávia Neves.

The deal, brokered between Outsider (“Blanquita”) and France’s MPM Premium New Visions arm (“The Pink Cloud”), follows the film’s world premiere at Berlinale’s Panorama in 2022, where it snagged the third place Audience Award.

“Fogaréu” was a selection at the Neufchâtel International Film Festival and further competed at the Guadalajara Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival and the Mons Love International Festival, where it won the 400 Coups Competition Prize.”

“We’re happy to work with Outsider Pictures again, they’re a great supporter, carrying Latin American voices into North American homes,” Quentin Worthington, head of sales and acquisitions at MPM Premium, told Variety.“

“Infusing fantasy and thriller elements while creating a...

And the last film in competition is another sophomore feature film. Léonor Serraille of course won the Camera d’Or for Jeune Femme (aka Montparnasse Bienvenüe) — that film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section. Mother and Son (Un petit frère) stars Annabelle Lengronne in the lead matriarch flawed role. Hélène Louvart was the cinematographer on the film.

Set over the course of decades, we see two brothers grow up under a mother who doesn’t really have her act together — it leads them to different settings and dwellings – the result: adult children who have their own issues.

As expected, some of our jury folk made their way back home and so with thirteen votes in we’re looking at another 2.8 grade average.…...

MK2 Films has locked major territory deals on Leonor Serraille’s drama “Mother and Son” which world premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and garnered strong reviews.

“Mother and Son” charts the lives of a young African woman, Rose, and two of her four children, Jean and Ernest, who come to France from the Ivory Coast in the 1980s with high ideals. Juggling her parenting responsibilities and low-paying jobs, Rose still aspires to find true love and to fulfill her own desires, but she ultimately struggles to reach a balance between her roles as a mother and a woman. Jean and Ernest, meanwhile, will take different paths to fitting into French society while coping with their identity conflicts and their mother’s life choices.

MK2 Films has sold the movie to the U.K. (Picture House), Spain (Vertigo), Italy (Teodora), Sweden (Triart), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Greece (One From the Heart...

Kelly Reichardt’s ’Showing Up’ lands third on Screen’s Cannes jury grid.

Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave finishes on top of Screen’s Cannes jury grid with an average of 3.2 after Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up and Léonor Serraille’s Mother And Son fail to match its score.

Reichardt’s Competition debut Showing Up landed in third place with an average of 2.7 after receiving five scores of three (good) from our jurors.

Click top left to expand

The film, starring Michelle Williams, centres on a New York artist preparing for a show who must balance professional demands with...

Here’s a fun bit of symmetry: Of the four French titles competing for this year’s Palme d’Or, the first to screen was “Brother and Sister” and the last was “Mother and Son.” (Presumably daughters and grandparents will get their due next year.) Of the two, “Mother and Son” director Léonor Serraille bests her colleague Arnaud Desplechin in the family-saga sweepstakes, delivering a decade-spanning immigration drama that plays on the most intimate of registers.

The film closed out the Cannes competition on Friday, providing it an auspicious berth. This year’s jury will go into deliberations with actress Annabelle Lengronne fresh in mind; should the actress win, she won’t have far to travel.

She isn’t entirely the lead, as the triptych follows a Franco-Ivorian family in chapters dedicated to each member. We open in 1989 on Rose (Lengronne), a young mother of four who leaves her two...

When his mother spoke, Ernest remembers, everything sounded important. “I cling to her light,” he tells us in voiceover, an adult remembering how that felt. The Ernest he is recalling is just a little boy (Milan Doucansi), snuggled against Rose, with his grave and clever older brother Jean (Sidy Fofana) sitting opposite on a train taking them from Cote d’Ivoire to a new French life.

Mother and Son is the story of that life – less story, perhaps, than a tapestry of carefully embroidered details – over 25 years, focusing on each of the three characters in turn. The writer and director, Leonor Serraille, is a young white woman educated at the Sorbonne; she returns to Cannes in competition after winning the Camera d’Or with Jeune Femme in 2017. Nevertheless, the film has the feel of autobiography, piled high with memories. Everything here clearly sounded important to Serraille,...

Nobody who has lived their entire life in one country can fully understand the strange, intimate disruption of emigrating as a family. For a time, parents and children are united and equal in disorientation, the adults’ authority on hold as all parties mutually wander and fumble their way through new cultures, geographies and social circles — a shared rite of passage, cutting through separating decades. Eventually, everyone finds their feet, traditional roles are reasserted, and stable family life resumes — except when it doesn’t, as depicted in Léonor Serraille’s delicate but wrenching second feature “Mother and Son.” An unsentimental but stoically anguished portrait of a tough single mother and two vulnerable sons settling (or not) in France from the Ivory Coast, it shows how the immigrant experience can equally tighten the knot between parent and child, or permanently unravel it.

An unassumingly ambitious drama, plainly but poetically told in three...

Both features will receive their world premieres at the Cannes Film Festival.

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights for two Cannes Competition titles: Léonor Serraille’s Mother And Son and Tarik Saleh’s Boy From Heaven.

Mother And Son debuts on the Croisette today (April 20), and is sold by mk2 films. It tells the story of a woman who moves from the Ivory Coast to the Paris suburbs with her two sons in the late 1980s and follows the construction and deconstruction of her family over the subsequent 20 years.

It marks the second feature from French filmmaker Serraille,...

Both features will receive their world premieres at the Cannes Film Festival.

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights for two Cannes Competition titles: Léonor Serraille’s Mother And Son and Tarik Saleh’s Boy From Heaven.

Mother And Son debuts on the Croisette today (April 20), and is sold by mk2 films. It tells the story of a woman who moves from the Ivory Coast to the Paris suburbs with her two sons in the late 1980s and follows the construction and deconstruction of her family over the subsequent 20 years.

It marks the second feature from French filmmaker Serraille,...

Five years after winning Cannes’ Camera d’Or prize with her debut feature, “Jeune Femme,” French writer-filmmaker Leonor Serraille graduated to a competition slot with “Mother and Son,” a timely family drama spanning three decades. Serraille is one of the five female directors competing for this year’s Palme d’Or.

“Mother and Son” charts the lives of a young African woman, Rose, and two of her four children, Jean and Ernest, who come to France from the Ivory Coast in the 1980s with high ideals. Juggling her parenting responsibilities and low-paying jobs, Rose still aspires to find true love and to fulfill her own desires, but she ultimately struggles to reach a balance between her roles as a mother and a woman. Jean and Ernest, meanwhile, will take different paths to fitting into French society while coping with their identity conflicts and their mother’s life choices.

Serraille said...

MK2 Films, the company behind six films playing at Cannes including Leonor Serraille’s competition title “Mother and Son,” has acquired French and international rights on the Raoul Peck catalogue from Velvet Film.

MK2 Films will start selling the library of films during the Cannes Film Festival. The Raoul Peck collection comprises documentary and fiction, including the HBO documentary series “Exterminate All the Brutes” which earned Peck a DGA Awards nomination.

The collection also includes “I Am Not Your Negro,” the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA-winning documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, as well as the powerful “Lumumba: Death of a Prophet,” the restored, 4K version of which played at Cannes Classics last year. The doc is a historical investigation weaving Peck’s childhood memories and a tribute to a leading figure of modern African heritage.

MK2 Films will also now represent Peck’s “Haitian films,” a mini-collection comprising three fiction films and a documentary,...

MK2 Films, which is presenting six movies at the Cannes Film Festival, will be attending the market with a pair of hot new titles, French director Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” and Israeli helmer Maya Dreifuss’s “Highway 65.”

“Anatomy of a Fall” stars Sandra Hüller, the critically acclaimed German actor of “Toni Erdmann,” as an enigmatic German novelist who is arrested after the mysterious death of her husband at their chalet in the French Alps. The court case examines every aspect of the relationship she had with her husband, while her visually impaired son is called to testify as a witness.

The movie will re-team MK2 Films with Triet, whose latest film “Sybil” competed at Cannes. Fionnuala Jamison, MK2 Films’s managing director, described the film as a “Hitchcockian tale of suspense.” “We were hooked on the script, the complexities of Sandra’s character, and its original premise...

New titles join 47 unveiled at April 14 press conference and previously announced Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick.

Cannes Film Festival has added a flurry of new titles to its 2022 Official Selection, as promised by delegate general Thierry Frémaux at last week’s press conference unveiling the bulk of the titles due to premiere at its 75th edition, running May 17-28.

A total of 17 fresh additions were announced, joining the 47 films unveiled on April 14 as well as Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick, which were announced earlier. This brings the total number of films in selection so far to 66 against 83 in last year’s special July edition.

Selected directors include Stephan Komandarev, Dzintars Dreibergs, Laetitia Dosch.

Stephen Komandarev, Dzintars Dreibergs and Laetitia Dosch are among the 18 directors whose projects have been selected for the 13th edition of the Les Arcs Coproductions Village.

The projects will compete for the €6,000 ArteKino International Prize.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

Bulgarian director Komandarev participates with Made In EU, a co-production between Bulgaria’s Argo Film and Germany’s 42Film. Komandarev has directed 10 previous features, including Directions, which debuted in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2017.

Dreibergs attends with Escape Net, produced by Latvia’s Kultfilma. Dreibergs’ previous titles include Blizzard Of Souls,...

Blue Monday Productions has boarded “Cora,” the feature directorial debut of visual artist and filmmaker Evi Kalogiropoulou, which was awarded at the Rotterdam Film Festival’s CineMart and the Cannes Cinefondation’s Atelier earlier this year.

“Cora” is the story of two working-class women fighting for freedom and their own identity against a dystopian patriarchal society. It follows the director’s short film, “Motorway 65,” which played in competition in Cannes last year.

Speaking to Variety at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Kalogiropoulou said she drew inspiration for her feature debut during an artistic residency in the working-class town of Elefsina, where local women shared stories about the struggles they faced, especially as recent waves of immigration altered the social dynamic of the community. “For me the biggest question to explore is how it feels for a woman to be working and living in an area with so much contradiction and struggle,...

The Performer | Thuso Mbedu

The Show | Amazon Prime’s The Underground Railroad

More from TVLineHalston Finale Recap: What Happens After an Artist Sells His Soul?Barry Jenkins Breaks Down How The Underground Railroad's Music Connects Black People to Their AncestorsRatings: Blue Bloods Rises With Finale, Dominates Friday in Viewers

The Episode | “Chapter 2: South Carolina” (May 14, 2021)

The Performance | The endless longing of Mbedu’s soulful eyes immediately draw you into her character Cora with the same alluring power of a young Ruby Dee. Every pain and triumph lingers on her face, compelling you to study her.

Cora is a woman...

Annabelle Lengronne, Stéphane Bak, Ahmed Sylla and Kenzo Sambin are in the cast of the second film by the filmmaker who won the Caméra d’Or in Cannes in 2017, produced by Blue Monday. The first clapperboard slammed yesterday on Un petit frère, the second feature film from Léonor Serraille after Montparnasse Bienvenüe. Standing out in the cast are Annabelle Lengronne, Stéphane Bak, Ahmed Sylla (The Climb) and...

The two actresses are toplining the feature debut by comic-book author Nine Antico; the film is currently being shot and is being produced by Atelier de Production. Comic-book author Nine Antico has been shooting her feature-length directorial debut, Playlist, since 15 July. Topping the bill are Sara Forestier and Laetitia Dosch (Lumières Award for Best New Actress in 2018 and nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress the same year for Montparnasse Bienvenüe, also popular in movies such as Age of Panic, Gaspard at the Wedding...

Ben Dickey

For an event that’s only in its 6th edition, the Louisiana International Film Festival (April 18–22) already seems to have dramatically changed the film landscape of the city of Baton Rouge and nearby towns. Fostering the development of a cinephile community and supporting local creators through its mentorship program, this regional outfit thrives thanks to its carefully selected slate and engaged audiences.

Program Director Ian Birnie, who was has been involved with Liff since its inception in 2013, has consistently assembled a selection of films comprised of accessible crowd-pleasers (this year with Streaker), unexpected foreign language gems (Double Lover), well-crafted American indies (American Animals), and Louisiana-made productions highlighting homegrown talent (Cut Off). Well-attended screenings, even for the more obscure titles, confirmed the notion that people are interested in watching what the fest has to offer beyond the galas and parties.

Choosing Ethan Hawke’s Blaze as the Opening Night...

Eric Barbier’s “Promise at Dawn” will headline the 2018 Colcoa French Film Festival on April 23, the Franco-American Cultural Fund announced Tuesday.

“Promise at Dawn” is an adaptation of French author Romain Gary’s autobiography that stars Pierre Niney and Charlotte Gainsbourg. The film will kick off the screenings of 37 new features and documentaries competing for the Colcoa Cinema Awards at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles. The event will present a record total of 86 films, TV shows, digital series, and virtual reality programs, 75 of which will be considered for the Colcoa awards throughout the week’s festivities, which will culminate on May 1.

Colcoa executive producer and artistic director Francois Truffart also announced that this year’s festival will set aside a day exclusively for screening first films made by female writers and directors. The day, titled “Focus on a Filmmaker Day,” will honor writer, director, and actor Melanie...

The Us premiere of Mathieu Amalric’s Barbara will open the 23rd Rendez-Vous With French Cinema, set to run in Hollywood from March 8-18.

The Us premiere of Mathieu Amalric’s Barbara will open the 23rd Rendez-Vous With French Cinema, set to run in Hollywood from March 8-18.

The annual French cinema showcase will showcase 24 films from both emerging and established filmmakers, Film Society of Lincoln Centre and UniFrance announced on Wednesday (February 7).

Amalric and his leading lady and co-star Jeanne Balibar will attend the screening of his drama, which was recently nominated for nine Cesar awards including best film, actor, and actress.

Other films in the 2018 series include: Léonor Serraille’s Montparnasse Bienvenue, which received the Camera d’Or award in Cannes; Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s A Paris Education (Mes Provinciales); Noémie Lvovsky’s Tomorrow And Thereafter; (Demain Et Tous Les Autres Jours); Xavier Legrand’s Custody (Jusqu’à La Garde); Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians (Les Gardiennes); and Nobuhiro Suwa...

French Aids activism drama earns six top French awards after missing out on Oscar consideration.

Robin Campillo’s Aids activism drama Bpm (Beats Per Minute) triumphed at the 23rd Lumière Awards, France’s equivalent of the Golden Globes, on Monday evening (February 5), winning in all six categories in which it was nominated.

The feature, revolving around the work of the French branch of militant Aids advocacy group Act Up in the early 1990s, won best director, screenplay and film.

Co-star Nahuel Pérez Biscayart clinched best actor for his performance as young activist Sean Delmazo, who battles the illness to the death, while Arnaud Valois picked up best male revelation for his performance as Sean’s loyal partner. Arnaud Rebotini won for best music.

After thanking Campillo, the film’s producers Hugues Charbonneau and Marie-Ange Luciani, as well as the rest of cast and crew, Biscayart also paid tribute to Act Up for its pioneering work to raise awareness...

Wander Woman: Serraille’s Tantalizing Tale of Wayward Independence

Upon breaking up with her former lover, a youthful woman roams the streets of Paris with a view to securing economic stability in Montparnasse Bienvenue (Jeune Femme), written and directed by first timer Léonor Serraille.

Continue reading...

The 61st BFI London Film Festival has announced its full program for this year’s festival, featuring a large selection of 242 feature films from both established and emerging talent. This year, the festival will host 29 World Premieres, 8 International Premieres and 34 European Premieres. The 242 features screening at the festival include: 46 documentaries, 6 animations, 14 archive restorations and 16 artists’ moving image features. The festival also includes 128 short films, and 67 countries are represented across short film and features.

As was previously announced, the starry festival, often viewed as a major launchpad for awards contention, will open with Andy Serkis’ much-anticipated true-life directorial debut “Breathe” and close out with Martin McDonagh’s Frances McDormand-starring “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”

Read More:‘Breathe’ Trailer: Andy Serkis’ Directorial Debut Could Bring Andrew Garfield Back to the Oscar Race

Those exciting titles are now joined by a wealth of other major contenders, including “Call Me By Your Name,...

Michael Haneke’s Happy End also among titles in non-competitive strand.

The Sarajevo International Film Festival (August 11-18) has unveiled the line-up for its Kinoscope programme, with 17 titles competing.

The non-competitive strand, which first launched in 2012, selects titles from around the globe and excludes territories featured in the main competition.

Among this year’s cohort are major titles to have competed at Cannes including the Palme d’Or-winner The Square, Michael Haneke’s latest feature Happy End and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s well-received Loveless.

Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa’s Gabriel And The Mountain, Léonor Serraille’s Montparnasse Bienvenüe, Chloé Zhao’s The Rider and Valeska Grisebach’s Western are also included.

The 2017 Kinoscope Line-up

Ava

France, 2017, 105 min.

Director: Léa Mysius

Gabriel And The Mountain / Gabriel E A Montanha

Brazil, France, 2017, 127 min.

Director: Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa

A Ghost Story

USA, 2017, 93 min.

Director: David Lowery

Godspeed / Yi Lu Shun Feng

Taiwan, 2016, 111 min.

Director: Mong-Hong Chung

Happy End

France, Austria, Germany...

Business as usual for festival unfolding on famous Paris avenue hit by two terror attacks in recent weeks.

Lauren Wolkstein and Christopher Radcliff’s thriller The Strange Ones has scooped the top prize at the sixth edition of France’s Us-focused Champs-Elysées Film Festival, which wan June 15-22.

The feature, starring Alex Pettyfer and James Freedson-Jackson as two brothers on a mysterious trip into the wilderness, premiered at SXSW earlier this year.

The American Independent Jury Prize comes with a €10,000 cash award for the French distributor of the film but, as it has yet to be acquired for France, the...

'Good Time' with Robert Pattinson: All but completely bypassed at the Cannes Film Festival, Ben and Joshua Safdie's crime thriller – co-written by Joshua Safdie and Ronald Bronstein – may turn out to be a key contender in various categories next awards season. Bypassed Palme d'Or contenders (See previous post re: Cannes winners Diane Kruger & Sofia Coppola's Oscar chances.) The Cannes Film Festival has historically been both U.S.- and eurocentric. In other words, filmmaking from other countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific tend to be ignored either at the awards ceremony or at the very outset – in other words, they don't even get the chance to compete for the Palme d'Or. This year was no different, with a mere two non-u.S., non-European productions (or co-productions) among the 19 films in the Official Competition: Naomi Kawase's Japanese romantic drama Radiance and Hong Sang-soo's South Korean romantic drama The Day After. Both came out empty-handed. Among the other movies that failed to win any of the Official Competition awards, several may have a shot in some category or other come Oscar time. Notably: The socially conscious family drama Happy End, produced by veteran Margaret Ménégoz (Pauline at the Beach, Europa Europa) and a Sony Pictures Classics release in North America. Dir.: Michael Haneke. Cast: Isabelle Huppert. Jean-Louis Trintignant. Mathieu Kassovitz. The mix of time-bending mystery and family drama Wonderstruck, a Roadside Attractions / Amazon Studios release (on Oct. 20) in the U.S. Dir.: Todd Haynes. Cast: Julianne Moore. Millicent Simmonds. Cory Michael Smith. The crime drama Good Time, an A24 release (on Aug. 11) in the U.S. Dir.: Ben and Joshua Safdie. Cast: Robert Pattinson. Jennifer Jason Leigh. Barkhad Abdi. Cannes non-win doesn't mean weaker Oscar chances It's good to remember that the lack of a Cannes Film Festival win doesn't necessarily reduce a film's, a director's, a screenwriter's, or a performer's Oscar chances. Case in point: last year's Cannes Best Actress “loser” Isabelle Huppert for Elle. Here are a few other recent examples of Cannes non-winners in specific categories that went on to receive Oscar nods: Carol (2015), Best Actress (Cate Blanchett) nominee. Two Days, One Night / Deux jours, une nuit (2014), Best Actress (Marion Cotillard) nominee. The Great Beauty / La grande bellezza (2013), Best Foreign Language Film winner. The Hunt / Jagten (2012), Best Foreign Language Film nominee (at the 2013 Academy Awards). The Artist (2011), Best Picture and Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius) Oscar winner. And here's a special case: Amour leading lady and 2012 Best Actress Oscar nominee Emmanuelle Riva could not have won the Best Actress Award at Cannes, as current festival rules prevent Palme d'Or winners from taking home any other Official Competition awards. In other words, Isabelle Huppert (again), Julianne Moore, and Robert Pattinson – and their respective films – could theoretically remain strong Oscar contenders despite the absence of Cannes Film Festival Official Competition victories. Mohammad Rasoulof and Leslie Caron among other notable Cannes winners Besides those already mentioned in this article, notable winners at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival include: Mohammad Rasoulof's A Man of Integrity. Having infuriated Iran's theocracy, in 2010 Rasoulof was sentenced to a year in prison following accusations of “filming without a permit.” He has been out on bail. In 2011, Rasoulof won the Un Certain Regard sidebar's Best Director Award for Goodbye. Two years later, his Un Certain Regard entry Manuscripts Don't Burn won the International Film Critics' Fipresci Prize. Veteran Leslie Caron and her 17-year-old pet rescue dog Tchi Tchi shared the Palm DogManitarian Award for their work in the British television series The Durrells in Corfu / The Durrells. Caron, who will be turning 86 on July 1, made her film debut in Vincente Minnelli's 1951 musical An American in Paris – that year's Best Picture Academy Award winner. She would be shortlisted twice for the Best Actress Oscar: Lili (1953) and The L-Shaped Room (1963). Last year, she was the subject of Larry Weinstein's documentary Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star and will next be seen in Thomas Brunot's short The Perfect Age. Faces Places / Visages, villages, which offers a tour of the French countryside, won Cannes' Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary. The directors are veteran Agnès Varda (Cléo from 5 to 7, Vagabond), who turned 89 on May 30, and photographer/muralist Jr. Faces Places is supposed to be Varda's swan song, following a career spanning more than six decades. Her 2008 César-winning documentary The Beaches of Agnès was one of the 15 semi-finalists for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. See below a comprehensive list of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival winners. Leslie Caron in 'The Durrells in Corfu.' TV series a.k.a. 'The Durrells' earned the veteran two-time Best Actress Oscar nominee ('Lili,' 1953; 'The L-Shaped Room,' 1963) and her dog companion Tchi Tchi this year's Palm DogManitarian Award at the Cannes Film Festival. 2017 Cannes Film Festival winners Official Competition Palme d'Or: The Square (dir.: Ruben Östlund). Grand Prix: 120 Beats per Minute (dir.: Robin Campillo). Jury Prize: Loveless (dir.: Andrey Zvyagintsev). Best Screenplay (tie): The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthymis Filippou. You Were Never Really Here, Lynne Ramsay. Best Actress: Diane Kruger, In the Fade. Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix, You Were Never Really Here. Best Director: Sofia Coppola, The Beguiled. Best Short Film: A Gentle Night (dir.: Qiu Yang). Short Film Special Mention: Katto (dir.: Teppo Airaksinen). Un Certain Regard Un Certain Regard Award: A Man of Integrity (dir.: Mohammad Rasoulof). Jury Prize: April's Daughter / Las hijas de abril (dir.: Michel Franco). Best Director: Taylor Sheridan, Wind River. Best Actress / Best Performance: Jasmine Trinca, Fortunata. Prize for Best Poetic Narrative: Barbara (dir.: Mathieu Amalric). International Film Critics' Fipresci Prize Official Competition: 120 Beats per Minute. Un Certain Regard: Closeness (dir.: Kantemir Balagov). Directors' Fortnight: The Nothing Factory / A Fábrica de Nada (dir.: Pedro Pinho). Directors' Fortnight / Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Prix Sacd (Société des Auteurs Compositeurs Dramatiques) (tie): Lover for a Day / L'amant d'un jour (dir.: Philippe Garrel). Let the Sunshine In / Un beau soleil intérieur (dir.: Claire Denis). C.I.C.A.E. Art Cinema Award: The Rider (dir.: Chloe Zhao). Europa Cinemas Label: A Ciambra (dir.: Jonas Carpignano). Prix Illy for Best Short Film: Back to Genoa City / Retour à Genoa City (dir.: Benoît Grimalt). Critics' Week Grand Prize: Makala (dir.: Emmanuel Gras). Visionary Award: Gabriel and the Mountain / Gabriel e a Montanha (dir.: Fellipe Barbosa). Gan Foundation Award for Distribution: Version Originale Condor, French distributor of Gabriel and the Mountain. Sacd Award: Léa Mysius, Ava. Discovery Award for Best Short Film: Los desheredados (dir.: Laura Ferrés). Canal+ Award for Best Short Film: The Best Fireworks Ever / Najpienkniejsze Fajerwerki Ever (dir.: Aleksandra Terpinska). Other Cannes Film Festival 2017 Awards 70th Anniversary prize: Nicole Kidman. Caméra d'Or for Best First Film: Montparnasse Bienvenue / Jeune femme (dir.: Léonor Serraille). Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary: Faces Places / Visages, Villages (dir.: Agnès Varda, Jr). Prize of the Ecumenical Jury: Radiance (dir.: Naomi Kawase). Queer Palm: 120 Beats per Minute. Queer Palm for Best Short Film: Islands / Les îles (dir.: Yann Gonzalez). Cannes Soundtrack Award for Best Composer: Daniel Lopatin, Good Time. Vulcan Prize for Artist Technicians: Josefin Åsberg, The Square. Kering Women in Motion Award: Isabelle Huppert. Palm Dog: Einstein the Dog for The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). Palm DogManitarian Award: Leslie Caron and the dog Tchi Tchi for The Durrells in Corfu. Chopard Trophy for Male/Female Revelation: George MacKay and Anya Taylor-Joy. This article was originally published at Alt Film Guide (http://www.altfg.com/).

Exclusive: Claire Denis comedy and Léonor Serraille’s Camera d’Or winner also among haul.

UK art-house kingpin Curzon Artificial Eye has locked up a further four Cannes titles bringing its current haul from the festival to a mighty 10 movies.

New to the slate are Claire Denis’ Let The Sunshine In (Un Beau Soleil Interieur), joint winner of the Sacd award in Directors’ Fortnight, Laurent Cantet’s well-received The Workshop (L’Atelier), Léonor Serraille’s Camera d’Or winner Young Woman (Jeune Femme) and Rungano Nyoni’s striking Directors’ Fortnight entry I Am Not A Witch.

As previously announced the distributor has acquired Palme d’Or winner The Square, Grand Prix winner 120 Beats Per Minute, best screenplay winner The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, Fatih Akin’s Competition drama In The Fade (Aus Dem Nichts), for which Diane Kruger won the best actress prize, Michael Haneke’s Happy End and Francois Ozon’s L’Amant Double.

Directors...

Cannes Ends with…Awards — 3rd of 3

The heightened security with machine gun armed soldiers and policemen constantly patrolling was intensified after the Manchester Massacre. With a pall over the festival, one minute of silence was observed for the 22 murdered and flags hung at half-mast. In addition to that, the sudden death at 57 of the Busan Film Festival deputy director Kim Ji-seok and that of the James Bond star Roger Moore brought the film world into a new perspective as we join the larger world to face the random indications of human mortality. High security vs. cinema as a sanctuary of freedom is highlighted this year like no other time that I can recall in my 31 years here.President of the jury, Pedro Almodovar

But life does go on, the jury judges, the stars get press attention on the red carpet and the rest of us continue to wait patiently in...

Headed by Pedro Almodóvar, the 2017 Cannes Film Festival jury — also featuring Maren Ade, Jessica Chastain, Fan Bingbing, Agnès Jaoui, Park Chan-wook, Will Smith, Paolo Sorrentino, and Gabriel Yared — handed out their winners for the films in competition. Leading the pack is Ruben Östlund‘s Force Majeure follow-up The Square, which picked up the Palme d’Or, while Sofia Coppola earned Best Director — the first woman to do so since 1961, when Yuliya Solntseva won for Chronicle of Flaming Years, and only the second in Cannes history. Joaquin Phoenix and Diane Kruger picked up the top acting awards, while Nicole Kidman was given a special prize for the four projects she brought to Cannes.

Ahead of our picks for our favorite films (update: see them here), check out the complete list of winners below, along with other sections, as well as the jury’s discussion of their picks, as well as separate...

There were also wins for Sofia Coppola, Joaquin Phoenix and Diane Kruger.

The Competition prizes for the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival have been handed out tonight (28 May) in the Lumiere Theatre, with Ruben Östlund’s The Square winning the coveted Palme d’Or.

Pedro Almodóvar presided over this year’s jury that also included Will Smith, Maren Ade, Park Chan-wook, Paolo Sorrentino, Jessica Chastain, Fan Bingbing, Agnès Jaoui and Gabriel Yared.

Full list of winners below:

Palme D’Or

The Square (Ruben Östlund)

Grand Prix

120 Beats Per Minute (Robin Campillo)

Best Director

Sofia Coppola (The Beguiled)

Best Actor

Joaquin Phoenix (You Were Never Really Here)

Best Actress

Diane Kruger (In the Fade)

Jury Prize

Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

Best Screenplay

The Killing Of A Sacred Deer and You Were Never Really Here

Camera D’Or

Jeune Femme (Léonor Sérraille)

Best Short Film

A Gentle Night (Qui Yang)

Short Film Special Mention

Katto (Teppo Airaksinen)

70th Anniversary...

19 films are competing for the Palme d’Or.

The Competition prizes for the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will be handed out this evening (28 May) in the Lumiere Theatre, including the coveted Palme d’Or.

Pedro Almodóvar presided over this year’s jury that also included Will Smith, Maren Ade, Park Chan-wook, Paolo Sorrentino, Jessica Chastain, Fan Bingbing, Agnès Jaoui and Gabriel Yared.

The ceremony begins at around 6:15pm GMT. Watch the red carpet coverage below or Here on mobile.

Full list of winners, as they happen, below:

Best Actor

Joaquin Phoenix (You Were Never Really Here)

Best Actress

Diane Kruger (In the Fade)

Jury Prize

Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

Best Screenplay

The Killing Of Sacred Deer and You Were Never Really Here

Camera D’Or

Jeune Femme (Léonor Sérraille)

Best Short Film

A Gentle Night (Qui Yang)

Short Film Special Mention

Katto (Teppo Airaksinen)

Palme D’Orgrand Prixbest DIRECTORCannes 70 Competition filmsIn the Fade (Fatih Akin...

The 2017 Cannes Film Festival comes to an end today as Pedro Almodóvar’s Competition Jury announces this years winners in categories such as Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay and more. The 71st Palme d’Or winner in the festival’s history will also be revealed. Last year’s big winners included “I, Daniel Blake,” “American Honey” and “The Salesman.”

Read More: Watch The 2017 Cannes Awards: Live Stream Who Won The Palme D’Or

This year’s competition included Todd Haynes’ “Wonderstruck,” Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and Lynne Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here,” among others. Acclaimed foreign titled “Loveless” and “Bpm (Beats Per Minute)” are most likely to take the Palme, according to IndieWire’s official predictions page.

The awards ceremony can be live streamed here beginning at 1:15pm Et. Refresh the page during the ceremony for the updated winners list below.

Author: Jo-Ann Titmarsh

Showing in the Cannes Un Certain Regard section, Léonor Serraille makes her directorial feature debut with Jeune Femme; and what a debut it is. In a year that Cannes purportedly aims to focus on women directors, Serraille is surely one that we’ll be seeing plenty of on the festival circuit and beyond in the future. And as she said when presenting the film, hopefully the gender factor and the term ‘female director’ will become a discussion point of the past. That said, Jeune Femme is an unashamedly woman’s film with a predominantly female cast and crew. But don’t let the words ‘woman’s film’ deter you: this is a fantastic film on all levels, not least its lead, Laetitia Dosch.

Dosch plays Paula and we first meet her trying to bash down her ex’s door, head-butting it and landing herself in hospital. As...

A woman pleads “Open the door!!” in a tiny corridor, banging away with her fist and head. Such is the frenetic opening scene of Léonor Serraille’s “Jeune Femme” — the story of Paula as played by an unforgettable Laetitia Dosch in a star-making turn — and not only is it a fitting metaphor for Paula’s predicament throughout the course of the film, but the zest, zing and determination felt in those opening seconds ripple throughout the entire next hour and a half.

Continue reading Léonor Serraille’s ‘Jeune Femme’ Is A Triumphant Feature Debut Full Of Spark & Wit [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

The 2017 Cannes official selection is a mix of brainy competition auteurs, red-carpet star power, and the rarest breed — a handful of players who could return to North America as Oscar contenders.

Nicole Kidman will be stuffing her trunks with evening gowns, as she will need to walk the Palais steps at least four times: twice with Colin Farrell, for Cannes favorite Sofia Coppola‘s Civil War potboiler “The Beguiled” (Focus Features) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (A24), both in Competition, and again for John Cameron Mitchell‘s midnighter “How to Talk with Girls at Parties” (A24) and a preview of Jane Campion‘s returning Sundance Channel series, “Top of the Lake: China Girl.” How the three films play in Cannes will determine if the Oscar perennial returns for another go-round.

Isabelle Huppert won the Cesar and was close — we think — to winning the Oscar for “Elle.