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Veteran French distributor Rezo Films is closing its doors after more than 32 years and nearly 400 films after struggling to stay afloat in an increasingly competitive distribution landscape.

Founded in 1992 by Jean-Michel Rey and Nadia Lassoujade, Rezo Films helped to launch the careers of several French auteurs including Abdellatif Kechiche, Pascal Bonitzer, Catherine Corsini, Xavier Dolan, Gaspar Noé, Stéphane Brizé and Jeremy Clapin.

Several of those films performed well for arthouse titles in the territory including Clapin’s debut feature I Lost My Body in 2019, Brizé’s Mademoiselle Chambon in 2009, and Kechiche’s Games Of Love And Chance (L’Esquive) with 373,618 tickets...

Mica

Ismaël Ferroukhi breaks a nine-year absence with third feature, Mica, a French-Moroccan co-production produced by Lamia Chraibi, starring Sabrina Ouzani, Zakaria Inan and Azelarab Khagat. Ferroukhi won Best Debut Film at the 2004 Venice Film Festival for The Great Journey and his 2011 sophomore film Free Men received an Special Screening at Cannes. The film was a recent winner of the Gff award at the Final Cut in Venice Workshop.

Gist: Co-written by Fadette Drouard, Mica is a kid from the slums who is hired as a handyman at a swank Casablanca tennis club.…...

Cannes competition entry Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo, the follow-up to Abdellatif Kechiche’s Mektoub My Love: Canto Uno from 2017, starts with a quotation from the Quran: “They have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear.” The passage in question talks about the heedless who deserve to go to hell. To be blunt, sitting through the latest work from the filmmaker behind two bona fide masterpieces of contemporary French cinema — Games of Love and Chance (2003) and Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013) — was its own kind of hell. If only ...

Cannes competition entry Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo, the follow-up to Abdellatif Kechiche’s Mektoub My Love: Canto Uno from 2017, starts with a quotation from the Quran: “They have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear.” The passage in question talks about the heedless who deserve to go to hell. To be blunt, sitting through the latest work from the filmmaker behind two bona fide masterpieces of contemporary French cinema — Games of Love and Chance (2003) and Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013) — was its own kind of hell. If only ...

Abdellatif Kechiche, the French director best known for helming “Blue is the Warmest Color,” has been accused of sexual assaulting a young actress, Deadline reports. The woman, who is remaining anonymous for now, filed a complaint with French police at the beginning of October, alleging Kechiche assaulted her at a dinner party in Paris in June. Kechiche’s lawyer says the director “categorically denies” the accusation.

According to Deadline, French police have started a preliminary investigation into the accusation. The actress says the alleged assault took place at an apartment located in the 20th Arrondissement in Paris. The apartment was owned by a mutual friend of Kechiche and the actress.

Kechiche is famous for sharing the Palme d’Or with actresses Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Despite “Blue Is the Warmest Color” being championed by many critics and moviegoers, some have criticized Kechiche’s male...

Emmanuelle Bercot's smile Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Emmanuelle Bercot's Cannes Film Festival opener, upright Standing Tall (La Tête Haute) starring Catherine Deneuve, Sara Forestier, with César winning performances by Rod Parodot and Benoît Magimel, co-written by Marcia Romano (Xavier Giannoli's collaborating writer on Marguerite), screened at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York along with Maïwenn's My King (Mon Roi), in which Bercot shines with Vincent Cassel, Two Friends (Deux amis) director Louis Garrel and Isild Le Besco.

Malony with his mother Séverine (Sara Forestier): "He is not protected by the adult in his life…"

Abdellatif Kechiche's L'esquive (Games Of Love And Chance), Luc Dardenne and Jean-Pierre Dardenne's fairy tales, Sara Forestier in Katell Quillévéré's Suzanne, using a landscape to breathe, writing the story, the actors helping to create their characters, casting baby faces and being given a second chance entered into our conversation.

Abdellatif Kechiche won a Palme d'Or for his latest film, Blue Is the Warmest Colour, about a lesbian relationship between two students. But since then the director has been criticised for his working methods, and the film's young stars have said they'll never work with him again

Abdellatif Kechiche has not been a happy man lately. His new film, Blue Is the Warmest Colour, about a French teenager embarking on a lesbian relationship, has been garlanded with ecstatic reviews and is performing robustly at the box office since its release in France earlier this month. And at the Cannes film festival, back in May, Steven Spielberg's jury awarded his film the legendary Palme d'Or.

Still, even the Palme seems a mixed blessing for this eminently serious, soft-spoken man. "There's a certain anxiety that comes with that sort of recognition," he says in French, making a habitual pensive gesture with his hands,...

• French filmmaker Abdellatif Kechiche returned to Montreal (he dropped by for media purposes for the theatrical release of La Graine et le mulet a couple of months earlier) for Fnc’s retrospective on an already burgeoning career behind the camera. Over the course of three consecutive days the festival presented his filmography of three films, and last Thursday afternoon Kechiche took part of an “Encounter” with the public where he fielded questions mostly about his process, his style and how he works with his actors and, non-actors. Claude Chamberlain was on hand to present the filmmaker to the crowd. Before the soft-spoken, modest and generous French filmmaker exchanged with cinephiles, the moderator first discussed where and then how he caught the filmmaking bug. With Tunisian roots, Kechiche grew up in Nice, and became a fan of films from Jean Vigo. His addiction was fed at his local cinematheque, but

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• IFC Films, who has been filling up their coffers with subtitled fair as of late, has acquired the Us distribution rights to Abdellatif Kechiche's French drama La Graine et le mulet (The Secret of the Grain). Arianna Bocco grabbed the drama from Mike Runagall at Pathe International. The film tells the story of sixty year old dock worker in the port of Sete, Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares), who aspires to open his own restaurant in order to make something of his useless life. A divorced father, he tries his best to stay close to his family despite obvious tensions. Unable to realistically achieve his dreams on his own, his family slowly rallies around him and in the process reconnect. With over 800,000 admissions at the French box office and four Cesar awards (along with wins at Étoiles d'Or, Prix Louis Delluc, and the Lumiere Awards), the film has proven a great domestic success.

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PARIS -- La Vie en Rose starlette Marion Cotillard continued to sing her way through the international awards season with the Oscar hopeful nabbing the best actress prize in her home country at the 33rd Cesar Awards ceremony Friday night in Paris. Olivier Dahan's Edith Piaf biopic was the big winner of the night with five prizes including best sound, cinematography, art direction and costume design.

The pretty in pink and teary-eyed Cotillard thanked Dahan as she accepted her award: "You have changed my career as an actress, you have simply changed my life. You have written the most beautiful role in the world."

France's Academy of Film Arts and Sciences gave its top prize for best French film of the year to Abdellatif Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain, which continued its romp through the Gallic awards season starting with the Louis Delluc Prize in December and followed by statues at the Lumiere Awards, the Globes du Cristal, the Jacques Prevert awards, the Daniel Toscan du Plantier producer's prize and the Golden Star Awards.

Kechiche was awarded the Cesar for both best director and best original screenplay and saw his leading lady Hafsia Herzi go home with the prize for best female newcomer. Kechiche was no stranger to the stage at Paris' Chatelet theater where the awards were held: the director followed his 2005 Cesar winning streak for L'Esquive which also won four Cesars that year.

The Academy raised its eyelids for Mathieu Amalric who was named best actor for his role as paralyzed Elle editor Dominique Bauby in Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The absent Amalric, off shooting the next Bond film, sent a speech for master of ceremonies Antoine de Caunes to read aloud. Butterfly also won the prize for Best Editing.

PARIS -- L'Esquive (The Dodging), a small-budget drama about alienated youth in a French suburb, was the surprise winner at France's top honors, the Cesars, on Saturday night, scooping up the coveted award for best French film of 2004, and the best director Cesar for its helmer, Tunisia-born Abdellatif Kechiche. Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation won the Cesar for best foreign film, while Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss and Emir Kusturica's Life Is a Miracle tied to share the award for the best film from the European Union. Shot with a largely amateur cast of teenagers, L'Esquive also won the best screenplay award for Kechiche and co-writer Ghalia Lacroix. The $1 million film fended off strong competition from big-budget films including Jean-Pierre Jeunet's World War I drama, A Very Long Engagement, Olivier Marchal's police thriller 36 Quai des Orfevres, starring Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu, and the small-budget French boxoffice triumph of the year, The Chorus, which will vie for two Oscars Sunday: best foreign language film, and best original song.

PARIS -- L'Esquive (The Dodging), a small-budget drama about alienated youth in a French suburb, was the surprise winner at France's top honors, the Cesars, on Saturday night, scooping up the coveted award for best French film of 2004, and the best director Cesar for its helmer, Tunisia-born Abdellatif Kechiche. Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation won the Cesar for best foreign film, while Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss and Emir Kusturica's Life Is a Miracle tied to share the award for the best film from the European Union. Shot with a largely amateur cast of teenagers, L'Esquive also won the best screenplay award for Kechiche and co-writer Ghalia Lacroix. The $1 million film fended off strong competition from big-budget films including Jean-Pierre Jeunet's World War I drama, A Very Long Engagement, Olivier Marchal's police thriller 36 Quai des Orfevres, starring Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu, and the small-budget French boxoffice triumph of the year, The Chorus, which will vie for two Oscars Sunday: best foreign language film, and best original song.

PARIS -- Jean-Pierre Jeunet's World War I saga, A Very Long Engagement, swept up 12 nominations on Monday for the Cesar Awards, France's top film honors, including best film, best director, and best actress for Audrey Tautou. Les Choristes, France's contender for a foreign-language Oscar nomination, and 36 Quai des Orfevres, the police thriller starring Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil, each nabbed eight nominations. Choristes and 36 Quai will vie with Jeunet's film and two relatively small-budget French productions - teenage drama L'Esquive (The Dodging), directed by Tunisian-born Abdellatif Kechiche, which earned five nominations, and Arnaud Desplechin's Rois et Reine (Kings and Queen), about the parallel lives of two ex-lovers, which secured seven noms.