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She was pulled from obscurity (or non-retirement since her last feature was 2013’s Abuse of Weakness) when Saïd Ben Saïd optioned the rights to 2019 Danish film Queen of Hearts and then proposed it French filmmaker Catherine Breillat, and as luck would have it Léa Drucker would join a pantheon of memorable morally complex roles for actresses that we find in Breillat cinema. In Last Summer (L’été dernier), Drucker plays Anne, a lawyer who specializes in cases of sexual consent and parental custody while she is the matriarch of two adopted children and she then swims in murky waters in her relationship with teenage son (Théo) of her current husband.…...

A little silly to say about a movie that premiered in competition at Cannes and had the much-desired fall-festival run, but there should’ve been a little more excitement about Last Summer, which deserves much celebration for its own merits but stands all the more notable for being among the best films in the decades-long career of Catherine Breillat, who returned to feature filmmaking ten years after Abuse of Weakness. With the work now allowed to present a bit more on its own––and not as, say, the third viewing on a sleep-deprived day fueled by a Quest bar / Celsius lunch––I suspect its merits are about to really sing, ereceded by Film at Lincoln Center’s essential retrospective with the too-good-to-pass-up title “Carnal Knowledge.”

Ahead of a Janus-Sideshow release that kicks off on June 28, we have a trailer playing the brief, broad strokes. It nicely rhymes with Savina Petkova...

Catherine Breillat to present Last Summer and do a Deep Focus Free Talk at the 61st New York Film Festival. Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Film at Lincoln Center has announced that Paul B Preciado, director of Orlando, My Political Biography (Main Slate selection) will deliver the third annual Amos Vogel Lecture during the 61st New York Film Festival. In Deep Focus: Todd Haynes will present his Image Book, Nikki Giovanni (featured in Joe Brewster’s Spotlight selection Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Story) will participate in a discussion moderated by Edwidge Danticat, Sandra Hüller, star of two Main Slate selections (Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall and Jonathan Glazer’s brilliant Cannes Grand Prix winner The Zone Of Interest), and Catherine Breillat.

Sandra Hüller to present The Zone Of Interest with Jonathan Glazer and Christian Friedel and do a Deep Focus Free Talk Photo:...

Playing at Cannes to nice notices and perhaps little else––no awards, alas!––Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer nevertheless yields interest above much competition brethren. Her first feature since 2013’s Abuse of Weakness (which I just found myself pulverized by courtesy Criterion) remakes 2019’s Queen of Hearts with what has been described as Breillat-like zeal: sex in all its passions and taboos.

Ahead of TIFF and NYFF showings that’ll lead to a Janus-Sideshow release, we have a first English-subtitled trailer playing brief and in broad strokes. It nicely rhymes with Savina Petkova’s review out of Cannes, where she said, “Unlike the underlying cynicism of Brief Crossing––a film with a similar age gap and dynamic––Last Summer finds Breillat more open to the tenderness of love’s initial stages: Drucker lights up, she orgasms, she laughs, and even her lexicon changes. There are three sex scenes in the film,...

Sideshow and Janus Films have snatched up another of this year’s Cannes Festival favorites, picking up rights in North America for Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer.

The feature, which premiered in the Cannes competition lineup, is a French adaptation of May el-Toukhy’s Danish drama Queen of Hearts, which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2019. In the French version, Léa Drucker stars as Anne, a brilliant lawyer with a seemingly perfect husband and family film who puts everything at risk when she starts up a passionate love affair with her teenage stepson. Samuel Kircher and Olivier Rabourdin co-star. Last Summer was produced by Saïd Ben Saïd for Sbs production. The film is Breillat’s first feature in a decade, since Abuse of Weakness in 2013.

“Catherine Breillat is one of the boldest and most thought-provoking directors on the subject of desire,” said Sideshow and Janus Films in a statement.

Deal follows acquisition of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all North American rights from Pyramide International to Catherine Breillat’s Cannes Competition selection Last Summer (L’été Dernier).

‘Last Summer’: Cannes Review

Breillat’s first film in a decade since 2013 TIFF entry Abuse Of Weakness tells of Anne, a brilliant lawyer whose harmonious Paris life with husband Pierre and their daughters is thrown into disarray when she has an affair with her stepson.

Léa Drucker, Samuel Kircher and Olivier Rabourdin star in the Sbs production produced by Saïd Ben Saïd. Breillat and...

Anne (Léa Drucker) is an esteemed lawyer: as uncompromising as she is in her line of work, she is free to enjoy her private life. In her ’40s she has it all, the job and the family she never thought would come. So begins Catherine Breillat’s newest film, Last Summer, which may be a remake of May el-Toukhy’s 2019 adulterous drama Queen of Hearts, but yields to the French filmmaker’s every wish. Even though we never get any backstory to Anne’s character, it’s hinted that her youth was not a pleasant one, as an early abortion took away the possibility to have children of her own. But now, in the summer of her life, she is a mother of two adopted girls and stepmother to an unruly teenager named Théo (Samuel Kircher), from her husband Pierre’s (Olivier Rabourdin) previous marriage. Amidst the idyllic rituals of daily life in the countryside,...

French director Catherine Breillat has been breaking taboos throughout her career and her new Cannes Palme d’Or contender Last Summer is no exception.

The erotic thriller stars Lea Drucker as Anne, a family lawyer specializing in child protection, who embarks on a forbidden affair with her dissolute 17-year-old stepson Theo (Samuel Kircher), with devastating consequences. Read Stephanie Bunbury’s review for Deadline here.

The film has been warmly received in Cannes where it world premiered to a long standing ovation on Thursday evening.

Breillat addressed the provocative plotline in the press conference for the film on Friday, saying the initial relationship between Anne and Theo was “pure love”.

“I think that when they fall in love it’s unconscious, there’s a kind of happiness, a sort of intoxication that takes over. They’re not analyzing what’s going on. That’s why she is not a predator, it’s something else,...

Almost a full decade away from the camera since, Catherine Breillat returns to the competition with L’Été dernier (Last Summer). This is her second time here after 2007’s Une vieille maîtresse. Best known for Romance (1999), Fat Girl (2001), and Anatomy of Hell (2004), her 2013 Abuse of Weakness was a TIFF premiere.

A remake of May el-Toukhy’s Queen of Hearts – this sees Anne (Léa Drucker) a respected lawyer who lives in Paris with her husband Pierre and their two young daughters. Théo, Pierre’s 17-year-old son (Samuel Kircher) from a previous marriage, moves in, and Anne eventually begins an affair with him.…...

Here’s something to ponder through the lulls of “Last Summer:” Can a film without much spark really be said to fizzle? Such thoughts danced across many a mind at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where Catherine Breillat’s scandal-courting transgression drama mostly inspired yawns.

More inert than inept, “Last Summer” arrived in Cannes with fraught expectations: This is Breillat’s first film in a decade and a faithful remake of May el-Toukhy’s acclaimed “Queen of Hearts” — and within the Venn diagram of cinephiles who impatiently awaited Breillat’s follow-up to 2013’s “Abuse of Weakness,” and journalists who reviewed and celebrated that 2019 Danish drama you could probably fit the entire Palais.

Like a cover song that follows the same notes but changes the emphasis, “Last Summer” tracks a high-powered juvenile rights attorney who begins a taboo fling with her underage stepson. The lawyer here is Anne, a...

It is my experience that one gets a far richer, stranger cinema education in pursuing the careers of actors, that group defined first by (assuming luck shines upon them) two or three era-defining films and then so much that dictates their industry—pet projects, contractual obligations, called-in favors alimony payments, auteur one-offs, and on and on. Few embody that deluge of circumstance better than Michelle Yeoh and Isabelle Huppert, both of whom are receiving spotlights in March. The former’s is a who’s-who of Hong Kong talent, new favorites (The Heroic Trio), items we can at least say are of interest (Trio‘s not-great sequel Executioners), etc.

Huppert’s series runs longer, and notwithstanding certain standards that have long sat on the channel it adds some heavy hitters: Hong’s In Another Country, Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness, Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come. And, of course,...

After a relatively prolific output in the 90s and 00s––including her widely acclaimed 2001 drama Fat Girl––Catherine Breillat hasn’t made a film since 2013’s Abuse of Weakness starring Isabelle Huppert. The French filmmaker is now finally set to return with a new project.

Breillat will direct a remake of May el-Toukhy’s Queen of Hearts, which was selected as Denmark’s Oscar entry in 2019, Les Inrockuptibles reports. The erotic drama followed a lawyer and mother named who gets romantically involved with her teenage stepson, causing strife in her family. Titled Inavouable (which roughly translates to unspeakable or unmentionable), Breillat’s remake will star Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Olivier Rabourdin and production is aiming to kick off this summer, so expect a 2022 festival debut.

Zhuo-Ning Su said in our review of the original film, “In Danish writer/director May el-Toukhy’s gripping, thought-provoking erotic drama Queen of Hearts, problematic sex happens at an unlikely place.

Dimitri de Clercq on You Go To My Head: “A lot of the scenes are shot at the Malick hour, dawn or dusk.”

Delfine Bafort and Svetozar Cvetkovic star in Dimitri de Clercq’s quietly disturbing, beautifully framed You Go To My Head, shot by Stijn Grupping in Morocco. His first directing experience was working with Alain Robbe-Grillet On The Blue Villa (Un Bruit Qui Rend Fou) after producing Ray Müller’s The Wonderful, Horrible Life Of Leni Riefenstahl (Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl) and Mathieu Kassovitz’s debut feature Café au lait.

Svetozar Cvetkovic as Jake and Delfine Bafort as Kitty in Dimitri de Clercq’s You Go To My Head

You Go To My Head smartly bookends with Chet Baker songs. Catherine Breillat’s longtime editor Pascale Chavance is thanked in the end credits.

Imagine a man...

Isabelle Huppert with her Mrs. Hyde (Madame Hyde) director Serge Bozon Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The first time I talked with Isabelle Huppert at length was in Paris in 2006, when Serge Toubiana introduced us at the Cinémathèque Française (which had then recently opened in the Frank Gehry building at 51 rue de Bercy) private reception for Le Roman D’isabelle, La Femme Mystère. Over the years Isabelle and I have had conversations on her work with Catherine Breillat for Abuse Of Weakness, Guillaume Nicloux’s Valley Of Love with Gérard Depardieu, and Serge Bozon’s Mrs. Hyde (Madame Hyde). In October of last year, I met with Isabelle Huppert in one of the suites of the Four Seasons for a conversation on her starring role in Ira Sachs' Frankie, co-written with longtime collaborator Mauricio Zacharias.

Ilene (Marisa Tomei) with Frankie (Isabelle Huppert)

Patrice Chéreau’s Joseph Conrad adaptation Gabrielle...

Never a stranger to controversy, “Fat Girl” director Catherine Breillat made some provocative remarks during a recent Variety interview in the lead-up to her new role as Locarno Film Festival jury chief. The interview runs the gamut of topics, with Breillat touching on everything from Tunisian-French director Abdellatif Kechiche to disgraced #MeToo crusader Asia Argento, with whom Breillat worked on 2007’s “The Last Mistress.”

Breillat said she feels that Kechiche, whose 2019 Cannes film “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo” appalled audiences with its graphic and some say misogynistic depictions of sex and nudity, overdid it with the sex scenes in 2013’s Nc-17-rated lesbian romance “Blue Is the Warmest Color.”

“Well, I do think Kechiche spent way too long shooting that sex scene. He shot it over two weeks, whereas I would have done it in a day,” Breillait said. “You can’t put actresses in that position for 15 days. I’ve...

Catherine Breillat is no stranger to controversy. If the French novelist and director has spent a career confronting censorship and social taboos, that has not prevented her from developing a reputation as one of the world’s most iconoclastic and widely acclaimed authorial voices.

From her 1976 directorial debut, “A Real Young Girl,” through to 2013’s “Abuse of Weakness,” Breillat has continually sought to examine and reframe conventional depictions of femininity, more often than not twisting them towards provocative ends. This year she heads the Locarno Film Festival jury – which marks a fitting choice for both a festival finding new footing under the leadership of artistic director Lili Hinstin, and for a larger film culture still wrestling with many of the questions Breillat has regularly explored.

Variety spoke with this year’s jury president shortly before she packed her bags for Locarno. [Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.]

Do you have any history with Locarno?

Locarno was...

Lili Hinstin is looking to shake things up. The new artistic director of the storied Locarno International Film Festival, whose 72nd edition, Hinstin's first as boss, kicks off Wednesday, wants to sharpen the edge that has made the Locarno the film lover's film festival.

Hinstin's announced this year's program with a "manifesto" calling on Locarno, and the indie film industry in general, to embrace risk and controversy. She backed that up by naming Catherine Breillat — the controversial French director known for such taboo-exploding works as Sex Is Comedy, Sleeping Beauty and Abuse of Weakness —...

Lili Hinstin is looking to shake things up. The new artistic director of the storied Locarno International Film Festival, whose 72nd edition, Hinstin's first as boss, kicks off Wednesday, wants to sharpen the edge that has made the Locarno the film lover's film festival.

Hinstin's announced this year's program with a "manifesto" calling on Locarno, and the indie film industry in general, to embrace risk and controversy. She backed that up by naming Catherine Breillat — the controversial French director known for such taboo-exploding works as Sex Is Comedy, Sleeping Beauty and Abuse of Weakness —...

The 72nd Locarno Film Festival, a longtime beacon of the international indie filmmaking community, is being shaken up under new artistic director Lili Hinstin. She is the Swiss event’s second female chief since it was founded in 1946 and one of the few women to head an A-list fest.

Hinstin takes the reins from Italy’s Carlo Chatrian who went on to become Berlinale co-director after six years at Locarno’s helm, his last edition characterized by movies with women at their center. The Swiss fest will run Aug. 7-17.

In announcing her selection, Hinstin, who previously headed France’s Entrevues Belfort Intl. Film Festival, says she’s aiming to “surprise, perturb and raise questions” and points out that “the choices you make for your first festival all tend to become a kind of manifesto.”

The Locarno opener is clearly significant: “If Only,” a partly autobiographical sentimental comedy about three kids of divorced parents,...

Italian director Ginevra Elkann’s directorial debut, “If Only,” about kids with divorced parents, will open the 72nd Locarno Film Festival, its first edition under new artistic director Lili Hinstin, who has assembled an edgy mix of promising titles from young auteurs and more established names.

“If Only” and the fest closer, iconic Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Uzbekistan-set “To the Ends of the Earth” will both premiere in Locarno’s 8,000-seat Piazza Grande.

Also set for a launch from the Piazza Grande is Amazon’s terrorist drama “7500,” directed by Patrick Vollrath, with star Joseph Gordon-Levitt in tow; Valerie Donzelli’s comedy “Notre Dame”; and fellow French director Stephane Demoustier’s “The Girl With a Bracelet,” in which a teenager stands trial for murdering her best friend.

Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which premiered in Cannes, will also screen on the Piazza (without talent in...

Update, March 30: The Murmur Podcast has since pulled the episode featuring Breillat.

Like several other luminaries of French cinema, Catherine Breillat has a complicated, even negative view of the #MeToo movement. The “Fat Girl,” “Abuse of Weakness,” and “Bluebeard” filmmaker recently appeared on the Murmur podcast to discuss everything from Harvey Weinstein (whose downfall is a “loss” for European cinema) and Asia Argento (“a mercenary and a traitor”) to #MeToo (which she’s “not for”) and Jessica Chastain (who never should have criticized “Last Tango in Paris”). It’s a compelling, increasingly out-there listen.

“Despite everything, I think that Europeans have lost a lot with the loss of Harvey Weinstein,” Breillat says of the disgraced former mogul. “You have to remember that there are French producers who we haven’t denounced — I won’t mention them; I won’t mention names, although I know three who are extremely respected...

Distributor plans autumn release following deal with Pathe International.

Strand Releasing has picked up North American rights to Souvenir starring Isabelle Huppert and Kevin Azaïs.

Bavo Defurne directed the film, which concerns a former singer who works in a factory and whose days of glory appear to be behind her.

When a co-worker discovers her talent he persuades her to hit the road for a comeback tour and a budding romance ensues.

Strand distributed Defurne’s previous feature North Sea Texas as well as his short films.

The distributor is no stranger to Huppert either, having released Anne Fontaine’s My Worst Nightmare, Guillaume Nicloux’s Valley Of Love, and Catherine Breillat’s Abuse Of Weakness.

Strand plans an autumn release and negotiated the deal with Pathe International. Bonjour Pictures, Frakas Productions, Deal Productions, and Avenue B Productions produced Souvenir.

“This film is making an amazing journey and I think Souvenir comes to the Us at the...

Mubi's retrospective, Catherine Breillat, Auteur of Porn?, is showing April 4 - June 3, 2017 in Germany.Sex Is ComedyThroughout her career, Catherine Breillat has provided viewers with a long-form meta-cinema experience. While metacinema is as old as the medium itself, since her debut feature A Real Young Girl in 1976, Breillat has developed a distinct form of it: one that collapses ‘autobiographical’ material, various artistic sensibilities, and the process of filmmaking itself.Like dozens of other English words—such as ‘aesthetic’ or ‘abject’—the word ‘meta’ has been largely misused or misapplied with regard to the film and literary criticism. Regarding the consumption of fiction, the appropriate use of the term 'metafiction,' 'metafilm,' et cetera, has its basis in the Greek meta, which does not translate directly into English but can be understood as a preposition similar to the English word ‘about’ (‘having to do with,’ or ‘on the subject of’). Metafiction is therefore,...

Editor’s Note: This article is presented in partnership with FilmStruck. Developed and managed by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in collaboration with the Criterion Collection. FilmStruck features the largest streaming library of contemporary and classic arthouse, indie, foreign and cult films as well as extensive bonus content, filmmaker interviews and rare footage. Learn more here. Agnes Varda

At age 88, the indomitable and highly influential Varda shows zero sign of slowing down when it comes to churning out art told through continually experimental means (she’s also remained committed to supporting her work in person, recently popping up at both the French Institute Alliance Française for a career-spanning chat and this year’s Rendezvous With French Cinema series with a brand new exhibit; we should all be so lucky to be as vital and involved when we’re half Varda’s age). Varda’s contributions to cinema and feminism have been...

Exclusive: Paris-based Upside Distribution is screening a teaser trailer at Efm.

French action director Olivier Megaton is hitting the European Film Market (Efm) this weekend with a teaser screening of his upcoming documentary Roc, The World’s Greatest Con Artist, about infamous French con artist Christophe Rocancourt, which is currently in post-production.

The Taken 2 and Taken 3 and Transporter 3 director reveals that between big budget action pictures he likes to make documentaries.

“I started out as a painter, not a director. Documentary helps me return to something more human and artisanal that I had when I was painting,” says Megaton.

“As time goes by the films I make are more and more heavy, complicated and pressured. When I am not making films, I need to do something different as I am addicted to work and find it impossible to stop. Documentary is something perfect for me. There’s not so much pressure and I love...

Exclusive: Paris-based Upside Distribution is screening a teaser trailer at Efm.

French action director Olivier Megaton is hitting the European Film Market (Efm) this weekend with a teaser screening of his upcoming documentary Roc, The World’s Greatest Con Artist, about infamous French con artist Christophe Rocancourt, which is currently in post-production.

The Taken 2 and Taken 3 and Transporter 3 director reveals that between big budget action pictures he likes to make documentaries.

“I’m started out as a painter, not a director. Documentary helps me return to something more human and artisanal that I had when I was painting,” says Megaton.

“As time goes by the films I make are more and more heavy, complicated and pressured. When I am not making films, I need to do something different as I am addicted to work and find it impossible to stop. Documentary is something perfect for me. There’s not so much pressure and I love...

This first feature of Kirsten Tan premiered in Sundance ‘17 World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Its provenance is Singapore but it takes place in Thailand. It continued onward to the Hivos Tiger Competition at Iffr (R’dam).

The thrill of interviewing here in Sundance is that you see a film; you have an impression and while it is still fresh you meet the filmmakers without having much time for any research or reflection. And then you get to see them again as “old friends” when you meet again in Rotterdam.

As Kirsten, her producer Weijie Lai and I sat down at the Sundance Co-op on Main Street here in Park City, I really had little idea of where the interview would take us, somewhat analogously to her film in which an architect, disenchanted with life in general, being put aside as “old” in his own highly successful architectural firm and in a stale relationship with his wife,...

Isabelle Huppert on Elle: "I never worked with a trained cat before." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Guillaume Nicloux's Valley Of Love, Mia Hansen-Løve's Things To Come (L’Avenir), and Paul Verhoeven's Elle have one thing in common - Isabelle Huppert. Metrograph in New York honoured Huppert by programming Catherine Breillat's Abuse Of Weakness (Abus De faiblesse); Claire Denis' White Material; Ursula Meier's Home; Hal Hartley's Amateur; Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher and Hong Sang-soo's In Another Country.

Isabelle Huppert with Metrograph's Aliza Ma Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Isabelle spoke with Aliza Ma at Metrograph, following the screening of In Another Country about what two of her latest films have in common:

Isabelle Huppert: In both films there is a cat. In Things To Come it's a very, very big cat. Very heavy like an elephant. In Elle [France's Foreign Language Oscar submission] is a very different cat.

Isabelle Huppert stars on stage in Phaedra(s) and films - Elle and Things to Come Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Guillaume Nicloux's bewitching Valley Of Love star Isabelle Huppert in 2013 presented Abuse Of Weakness with Catherine Breillat at the New York Film Festival. This year she has two films - Paul Verhoeven's Elle with Laurent Lafitte and Anne Consigny, based on the novel by Philippe Djian with a screenplay by David Birke, and also Mia Hansen-Løve's Things To Come (L’Avenir) with André Marcon and Edith Scob.

Isabelle Huppert in Phaedra(s)

In 2014, Isabelle Huppert performed on stage with Cate Blanchett and Elizabeth Debicki in New York during the Lincoln Center Festival in the Sydney Theater Company production of Jean Genet's The Maids, directed by Benedict Andrews at City Center.

This year she will star in Phaedra(s), directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski with text composed of excerpts...

The new issue of cléo features essays on Denis Villeneuve's Sicario, Jennifer Phang’s Advantageous, Catherine Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness, Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne's Two Days, One Night and Sean Baker's Tangerine, another on Anna May Wong, plus an interview with Kirsten Johnson (Cameraperson) and a profile of cinematographer Iris Ng. Also in today's roundup: Nina Hoss on her performance in Christian Petzold's Phoenix, reviving Ivan Passer's Cutter’s Way, honoring Ellen Burstyn and remembering Ronit Elkabetz and Doris Roberts. » - David Hudson...

The new issue of cléo features essays on Denis Villeneuve's Sicario, Jennifer Phang’s Advantageous, Catherine Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness, Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne's Two Days, One Night and Sean Baker's Tangerine, another on Anna May Wong, plus an interview with Kirsten Johnson (Cameraperson) and a profile of cinematographer Iris Ng. Also in today's roundup: Nina Hoss on her performance in Christian Petzold's Phoenix, reviving Ivan Passer's Cutter’s Way, honoring Ellen Burstyn and remembering Ronit Elkabetz and Doris Roberts. » - David Hudson...

John Waters on Isabelle Huppert: "It's amazing, she gets in the skin of whoever it is." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

At the Us première of Valley Of Love, Guillaume Nicloux's searing portrait of a long divorced couple (Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert), John Waters recalled Bertrand Blier's Going Places (Les Valseuses) as his first Isabelle experience, Catherine Breillat's Abuse Of Weakness (Abus De Faiblesse), and wishing he had seen her in Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire or Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis, or Jean Genet's The Maids with Cate Blanchett and Elizabeth Debicki.

The next morning over coffee, I shared greetings from her Tip Top director Serge Bozon and Mrs. Hyde, where Isabelle will star with Romain Duris and Depardieu. At the French Embassy after party celebrating 25 years of French electronic music with DJs Busy P, Boston Bun, Superpoze and Jacques, she tried to answer John Waters earlier posed question.

On Mubi / Off is a bi-weekly column exploring two films: one currently available on Mubi in the United States, and the other screening offsite (in theaters, on VOD, Blu-ray/DVD, etc).On Mubi Abuse of Weakness (Catherine Breillat, 2013)Two films, this week, about trauma to body and soul. One is clear-eyed and cutting, the other ostentatiously grim, lugubrious. Catherine Breillat's Abuse of Weakness (Abus de faiblesse, 2013) is the work of clarity—analytic autobiography of the best sort in which the French writer-director dissects her own swindling at the wily hands of career con artist Christophe Rocancourt, who took her for a high-six-figures sum after she suffered a debilitating stroke. The names have been changed, but innocence has not been protected. Breillat's onscreen surrogate, Maud Shainberg (Isabelle Huppert, at the height of her icy powers), is an especially harsh self-portrait—a victim, yes, but one whose so-called weakness (the title...

On Mubi / Off is a bi-weekly column exploring two films: one currently available on Mubi in the United States, and the other screening offsite (in theaters, on VOD, Blu-ray/DVD, etc).On Mubi Abuse of Weakness (Catherine Breillat, 2013)Two films, this week, about trauma to body and soul. One is clear-eyed and cutting, the other ostentatiously grim, lugubrious. Catherine Breillat's Abuse of Weakness (Abus de faiblesse, 2013) is the work of clarity—analytic autobiography of the best sort in which the French writer-director dissects her own swindling at the wily hands of career con artist Christophe Rocancourt, who took her for a high-six-figures sum after she suffered a debilitating stroke. The names have been changed, but innocence has not been protected. Breillat's onscreen surrogate, Maud Shainberg (Isabelle Huppert, at the height of her icy powers), is an especially harsh self-portrait—a victim, yes, but one whose so-called weakness (the title...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, while streaming services make it incredibly easy to see movies and television shows, they also make it impossibly difficult to watch one. There are thousands upon thousands of titles available at your fingertips (and more being added every month), but the sheer number of things to choose from is so paralyzing that every night inevitably ends the same way: with that episode of Friends where Ross' loses his monkey.

Fortunately for you, Rolling Stone is here to help. Every month, we sift through...

Acclaimed Norwegian director Joachim Trier (“Oslo August 31” and “Resprise”) began shooting his latest film, “Louder Than Bombs” in New York on September 4. Trier once again teams with Eskil Vogt, co-writing the script for his English language debut. The film is produced by Bona Fide Productions' Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger. Update: "Louder than Bombs" will world premiere in competition at Cannes. The film’s vetted cast includes award-winning actors Gabriel Byrne, Jesse Eisenberg, and Isabelle Huppert, who recently wrapped a brief stage appearance in “The Maids” and appeared in Catherine Breillat’s “Abuse of Weakness.” Co-stars include Amy Ryan, David Strathairn, and newcomer Devin McKenzie Druid. (Here's our interview with Huppert, who's excited to work with Trier.) Here's the synopsis: "Louder Than Bombs" centers around Gene (Byrne) and his two sons (Eisenberg and Druid), three years after the death of Gene’s wife (Huppert), an...

Bridge of Floating Dreams

Director: Catherine Breillat // Writer: Brian Jones

Shortly before her latest title, the autobiographical Abuse of Weakness hit it’s limited release in August 2014, provocateur Catherine Breillat announced she would be directing material written by someone other than herself for the first time in her four decades of filmmaking. It appears that Breillat has left behind her series of fairy tale adaptations indefinitely and is branching out with her first English language feature with this Japanese/Australian co-production, a 1960′s period piece titled Bridge of Floating Dreams. Breillat compared the script to her 1999 film Romance, so expect profound erotic flourishes.

Cast: Not available.

Producer: The late David Hannay, Richard Barnes and Candide Production France’s François Cohen-Séat.

U.S. Distributor: Rights available.

Release Date: At the time this was announced, work was still going into the script and further funding needed to be secured. Breillat doesn’t work very quickly,...

★★★★☆While Catherine Breillat's excellent latest film The Abuse of Weakness (2013) continues to languish in UK distribution limbo, it's a great pleasure to see a reissue of Romance (1999), her highly controversial treatise on female sexuality. It is the perfect summation of her cinema; explicit, ruminative and bracing - a film that attacks the partial nature of love and romance, while advocating the difficult totality of sex. Breillat's thesis unfolds with bold physicality and exacting philosophical rigour, unflinching in the face of horror and ceaseless in its crusading zeal. How to divorce sex from the conduit of love? It's a familiar idea in cinema, but never has it been so relentlessly pursued, especially from a female perspective.

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? This week […]

The post This Week In Trailers: The Postal Service – Everything Will Change, Evolution of a Criminal, Heartbeat, Point and Shoot, Abuse of Weakness appeared first on /Film.

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"The Expendables 3" finally crashed into theaters everywhere today. Will early online piracy hurt this tired reunion of old action fogies? Who cares, because there are better ways to spend your movie weekend. In select cities, two French auteurs deliver their finest, most introspective works in years: Catherine Breillat's "Abuse of Weakness" dwells in the dark power plays and disabilities of her own life, with Isabelle Huppert giving, as always, a shattering performance. And in Philippe Garrel's rueful "Jealousy," Parisian would-be bohemians (one is played by his son, Louis Garrel) are now parents in their thirties. This lovely black-and-white movie, at a lean, clean 77 minutes, finds beauty in banality. American festival indies also wend their way to art-houses, including the whimsical comedy "Frank" starring Michael Fassbender in a giant fake head, and zombie-rom-com "Life After Beth," with Dane DeHaan and Aubrey Plaza. If...

We're not sure who's idea it was, but well done. A couple of weeks back, to help promote Catherine Breillat's "Abuse Of Weakness," the folks at Film Society of Lincoln Center had the terrific idea to get John Waters to interview the film's star Isabelle Huppert. And now you can watch that entire conversation. The pair seems to get on quite well, and the talk is wide ranging, from Breillat's film to the nature of celebrity to Huppert's impressions of the differences between theatre roles and film work. "Doing movies for me is like a vacation," Huppert said. "Stage for me is like climbing a big mountain, and movies for me is like doing a nice little walk… it's really easy for me to make movies… Movies have to be the routine and stage has to be the exception." Huppert also shared her thoughts on one of her most controversial films,...

My Afternoon With Maud’s Money: Breillat’s Most Personal Film Showcases Huppert

Catherine Breillat leaves behind the series of Grimm’s fairy tales she was adapting and returns to autobiographical resources to tell one of her own with Abuse of Weakness, which recounts a scandal from the not too distant past in which a con-man Breillat had cast in her next film swindled her out of all her money. Rigid, frigid, and icy to the core, the re-enactment is less scandalous and perhaps more perversely self-castigating, but what supersedes all aspects of both the film’s origination and directorial intent is another fascinating performance from Isabelle Huppert, the stand-in for Breillat’s on-camera persona and perhaps the warmest rendition of an adult female to appear in her filmography yet.

Prolific film director and author Maud Schoenberg (Huppert) awakens suddenly to find half her body paralyzed after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

Virtuosic at embodying in vivid detail the physicality of her characters, Isabelle Huppert has built an impressive career around performances of corporeality. So it's unsurprising that Huppert would be chosen for Catherine Breillat's latest, Abuse Of Weakness, in which she bestows another indelible performance.

Huppert plays Maud, a filmmaker who has suffered a physically debilitating stroke. (Some of the tensest scenes consist of Maud simply trying to stand up, or perform a basic exercise.) Maud's incapacitation is highlighted when she befriends Vilko (Kool Shen), a former con artist whom Maud taps for a role in her new film.

The dynamic that develops between them shapes the narrative: A comfortable member of France's upper class, Maud is drawn to Vilko's macho...

John Waters gets serious with Isabelle Huppert at the Film Society of Lincoln Center: "So Michael Haneke, he's a a real laugh riot, I bet?" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

An Evening with Isabelle Huppert, the star of Catherine Breillat's Abuse Of Weakness (Abus De Faiblesse) was held at the Film Society of Lincoln Center with John Waters. Discussing Michael Haneke's sense of humor, Barbara Loden's Wanda - Andy Warhol connection, working with Werner Schroeter and not Fassbinder, lead to Huppert wishing she had worked with Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel, Jean Renoir, Douglas Sirk, Alfred Hitchcock and Waters himself. Marguerite Duras, Jean-Luc Godard, Nathalie Sarraute ending with a David O. Russell - Lily Tomlin moment rounded out the evening.

Huppert will be starring with Cate Blanchett and Elizabeth Debicki in the Sydney Theatre Company production of Jean Genet's The Maids, starting next week during the Lincoln Center Festival.

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Comics Alliance the internet is all excited about this old test footage for that Deadpool movie that's not going to happen for some reason. Starring Ryan Reynolds.

Lincoln Center standby only for the John Waters and Isabelle Huppert event tonight. I'm sure the Q&A will be great but I didn't like that movie Abuse of Weakness much (my review)

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The Daily Beast has a great Susan Sarandon interview icymi where she talks David Bowie,...

Isabelle Huppert on working with Catherine Breillat Abuse of Weakness and Michael Haneke on The Piano Teacher: "In a way, even with a man director with an actress, the director seems to have the actor reproduce some of them, to a certain level." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York will host An Evening with Isabelle Huppert, the star of Catherine Breillat's fantastic, heavy-duty tour-de-force Abuse Of Weakness (Abus de faiblesse). Cultural icon filmmaker John Waters will moderate a post screening discussion with Huppert on Wednesday, July 30, following the 6:00pm screening of Abuse Of Weakness.

Maud, played by Isabelle Huppert who is formidable in every scene and gesture, wakes up one morning under fresh white sheets and notices that there is something wrong with her left arm. She tries to get up and collapses. The tapestry of her world was struck down...

Strand Releasing has acquired North American rights to Karim Ainouz's "Futuro Beach" (Praia do Futuro), which played at the Berlin Film Festival.  "Futuro Beach" follows lifeguard Donato who rescues a German tourist, Konrad, while patrolling the dangerous Praia do Futuro beach in Brazil. As the two try and locate the body of Konrad's friend, they embark on a steamy romance. The lovers face problems when Donato decides to leave his home and family to join Konrad in Berlin.   "We're thrilled to work with Karim again," Marcus Hu of Strand Releasing said. "Not only is he a longtime friend of our company, but someone we've worked with previously with on 'Love for Sale' as well as his short films."  Strand Releasing will also be distributing upcoming films "Abuse of Weakness," "Lilting" and "Bicyling with Moliere."  A U.S. release date for the film has yet to be announced.

French director to direct her first English-language film.

French director Catherine Breillat has signed to direct her first English-language film, Bridge of Floating Dreams set against the backdrop of Japan some twenty years after Hiroshima.

Set against the backdrop of 1960s Japan, it revolves around the relationship between Sean, a young Australian backpacker on his first foreign adventure, and Miyoshi, a nightclub hostess.

In the backdrop, Sean is also befriended by an Austrian forger and a street-wise Japanese wannabe Yakuza hit man.

“In the relationship between Miyoshi and Sean there is something of “romance”, but more flamboyant and carnal; more romantic and Romanesque,” says Breillat.

It is based on a screenplay by award-winning Australian screenwriter Brian Jones

“In the relationship between Miyoshi and Sean there is something of “romance”, but more flamboyant and carnal; more romantic and Romanesque,” says Breillat.

It is the first time Breillat, whose last film Abuse of Weakness premiered at Toronto last year...

The title of the film may be “Abuse of Weakness,” but Isabelle Huppert’s performance as a filmmaker who suffers a stroke and then gets willingly conned by an ex-con is nothing but strong and steely-nerved. Which, of course, is to be expected from one of film’s best living actresses.Directed with suitable chilliness by Catherine Breillat, and based on an ordeal she herself went through, the film follows successful director Maud (Huppert), who awakens one day to a living nightmare: she can’t feel half of her body or, as she tells the emergency line operator, “half of my body is dead.” After going through lengthy and painful therapy to become basically functional again -- she can finally speak, and hobble around with the help of orthopedic boots -- she spots a man, Vilko (rapper Kool Shen) on television, a criminal recently released from a 12-year prison stint,...