The Mediterrane Film Festival announced its complete program ahead of its second edition, taking place in Malta’s capital of Valetta from June 22-30. New titles selected include recent Cannes highlights in Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-led body horror “The Substance” and Roberto Minvervini’s “The Damned,” which join previously announced films like Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Kinds of Kindness” and Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw The TV Glow.”

Further program additions include Mahdi Fleifel’s Directors’ Fortnight standout “To a Land Unknown,” which Variety labeled “a confident, angry, fully-realized drama,” and Truong Minh Quy’s Un Certain Regard breakout “Viet and Nam.” An extended version of the Malta-shot “Jurassic World: Dominion” will play as part of the Malta Expanded strand, while on the retrospective end of the program, the festival will honor David Bowie with screenings of Nicolas Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth” and Lisa Azuelos’s “My Way,...

The Mediterrane Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its second edition (June 22-30), with Cannes premiere The Count Of Monte Cristo set to open the event.

Scroll down for the full line-up

Directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, the film is among seven titles in the out of competition strand, which also includes Jane Schoenbrun’s Sundance title I Saw The TV Glow and Tarsem Singh’s Dear Jassi.

The 15-strong competition section features Cannes competition titles Kinds Of Kindness and The Substance, and Berlin premiere The Strangers case starring Omar Sy,

Seven films compete in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section,...

Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival has set the full competition and industry lineup for its second edition, which runs June 22 to 30 in the country’s capital, Valletta.

The programme includes 15 films in competition, seven out-of-competition, and seven films competing in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section, topped up by 14 immersive projects.

Select competition titles include Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest Kinds of Kindness, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance, and The Damned by Italian filmmaker Roberto Minvervini. All three films debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Scroll down to see the full lineup. Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller will serve on the competition jury.

The festival has also set its industry lineup, featuring a series of masterclass sessions. Speakers include editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis, production designer Nathan Crowley, casting director Margery Simkin, and composer Simon Franglen...

Mediawan Rights will rep international sales rights and has released a first teaser clip for “My Way,” a documentary about the iconic song that features a star-studded cast including Ol’ Blue Eyes himself and is narrated by Jane Fonda. The film premieres May 16 with a screening at the Cannes Film Festival’s Cinema de la Plage.

Directed by Thierry Teston in collaboration with Lisa Azuelos, “My Way” is billed as “a captivating journey into the heart of an iconic song that explores the universal appeal and enduring legacy of a timeless classic.”

Through the lens of performers including Frank Sinatra, Ben Harper, Paul Anka, David Bowie, Claude François, Clara Luciani and Sparks, and full of never-before-heard anecdotes, the documentary aims to paint a vivid portrait of the song’s evolution and impact on different generations and cultures, using rare archival footage to trace the remarkable journey of a single melody...

Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25) has added a rendez-vouz with Italian actor and filmmaker Valeria Golino to its programme as well as two animated features and the first Cinema de la Plage titles.

Golino, whose credits include Rain Man and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, will premiere the first episode of her new series The Art Of Joy followed by an in conversation event. The series, which will screen in Italian cinemas in July, stars Jasmine Trinca, Tecla Insolia and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and follows a Sicilian woman in the early 1900s who dreams of a better life.

The actor...

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled fresh news details about its 77th edition (May 14-25), including a Rendez-vous with…Valeria Golino event.

The Italian actress and director, whose 40-year career spans more than 100 acting credits, broke into directing just over a decade ago and has been invited to Cannes Official Selection twice with films Miele (2013) and Euforia (2018).

She has recently completed The Art of Joy. The adaptation of Goliarda Sapienza’s novel L’arte della gioia, was shot as a series but there is also feature-length cut which will release in cinemas in Italy later this year. The cast features Jasmine Trinca, Tecla Insolia and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi.

The first episode of the series will be previewed, followed by a dialogue between Valeria Golino and the audience.

The festival also announced the first titles selected for its free Cinéma de la Plage screenings: Daniel Burman’s Transmitzvah, Jul’s Silex and the City,...

Italy’s Sveva Alviti (“Dalida”) and U.S. actor Newton Mayenge (“Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty”) are attached to star in Cannes-set romantic drama “The Other Side of Fame” to be directed by Erik Bernard (“Free Dead or Alive”).

Alviti is a model and actor who played the iconic Egyptian-Italian singer in the 2017 “Dalida” biopic by French director Lisa Azuelos. In “The Other Side of Fame,” she will play a young woman who becomes romantically entangled in Cannes with an elusive American played by Mayenge, “compelling her to confront the profound choice between the allure of fame and the promise of true love,” according to the project’s synopsis.

Besides Mayenge – who played NBA legend Jim Chones in the HBO series about the Los Angeles Lakers – “The Other Side of Fame” will also feature Alejandro De Hoyos, who recently appeared in action comedy “The Man From Toronto...

A new study by the French cinema gender parity group Collectif 50/50 has revealed the ratio of female to male directors increased from 2013 to 2022, but that gender parity remains a long way off.

According to the study publisjed on Monday and entitled “Parity Behind The Camera”, women accounted for 27% of the 2,196 directors active over the decade in France.

At the same time, just 23.6% of the 2,876 majority-French productions shot over the period were directed only by female directors, although there had been a yearly increase for fiction features directed by women, to touch close to 30% in 2022.

The study revealed, however, that women struggled to build sustainable careers and draw big budgets for their work. Over the period, women accounted for just 11% of directors who had made more that five features.

It showed that a woman had never directed the biggest budget French production of the year over the decade and that the...

Running Jan. 10-17, Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris – an export focused market that unites buyers, producers, talent and press from film and television – will fête its 25th edition with a return to pre-pandemic (in-person) attendance numbers, and a once-more ebullient social calendar, rife with the cocktails, awards ceremonies and evening events that fell by the wayside over the past few vintages.

“We’ll have a renewed effervescence,” says Unifrance director of cinema, Gilles Renouard, of this year’s event. “People are finding each other again, [and] our goal was to get back toward a normal edition with our European distributors.”

Indeed, with 87 films brought to market and more than 400 international film distributors present, such figures mark highs unseen since 2019 – with those numbers bolstered by 100 TV buyers, who have come onboard once Unifrance merged with TV France International in 2021, thus creating a one-stop-shop for film and TV promotion.

“Our objective is not to increase each year,...

French sales company has unveiled its Rendez-Vous in Paris slate.

Snd, the feature film arm of France’s M6 broadcasting group, has sold Lisa Azuelos’ globe-trotting drama The Book Of Wonders and Eric Barbier’s adventure Princes Of The Desert to a slew of territories worldwide ahead of the titles’ world premieres at the upcoming Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris (Jan 10-17).

Snd will also market premiere Eric Besnard’s A Great Friend, Cécilia Rouard’s Killing Blue and Pierre-François Martin-Laval’s Jeff & Jean-Marc’s Adventures at the Rendez-Vous, and unveil first footage of Guillaume Nicloux’s The Baby.

Snd has...

French sales company’s titles include ’The Book of Wonders’, ‘The Baby’ and ’The Braid’.

Show Fullscreen

French sales company Snd has revealed a first look image and fresh production details for Princes Of The Desert, Eric Barbier’s adventure film starring Alexandra Lamy, and has unveiled details of its extensive AFM slate.

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Mika is behind the soundtrack for Princes of the Desert which was previously titled Tehu. Lamy, whose credits include Rolling To You, replaces the previously announced Charlotte Gainsbourg in the film.

The film, produced by Snd alongside Vertigo Productions, follows a young Berber boy who...

Martin Scorsese is executive producer on second feature from LA-based French directorial duo Hanna Ladoul and Marco La Via.

TF1 Studio has added French directorial duo Hanna Ladoul and Marco La Via’s English-language comedy-drama Funny Birds to its Cannes market slate.

Catherine Deneuve, Andrea Riseborough and Morgan Saylor are set to star as three generations of women from the same family.

Thrown together under tragic circumstances, the trio are forced to learn to live together on a small rural chicken farm in New Jersey which generates moving and amusing situations.

It is the second feature from LA-based Ladoul and...

Here’s the latest episode of the The Filmmakers Podcast, part of the ever-growing podcast roster here on Nerdly. If you haven’t heard the show yet, you can check out previous episodes on the official podcast site, whilst we’ll be featuring each and every new episode as it premieres.

For those unfamiliar with the series, The Filmmakers Podcast is a podcast about how to make films from micro budget indie films to bigger budget studio films and everything in-between. Our hosts Giles Alderson, Dan Richardson, Andrew Rodger and Cristian James talk how to get films made, how to actually make them and how to try not to f… it up in their very humble opinion. Guests will come on and chat about their film making experiences from directors, writers, producers, screenwriters, actors, cinematographers and distributors.

The Filmmaker’s Podcast #275: From Indie Failure to Hollywood success – how writer...

Most film imports from France are fresh from festivals and festooned with critical hosannas, which means American moviegoers don’t often get to see more populist French fare.

For example, actress-writer-director Lisa Azuelos had directed seven movies solo in France before she sold to Amazon her eighth feature, “I Love America” starring Sophie Marceau. This romantic autofiction is part memoir, part culture comedy, as Marceau plays a 50-year-old filmmaker based on Azuelos who takes off for Los Angeles just as her mother is dying.

The movie mixes time frames, from Azuelos’ foray into Hollywood, including Tinder dating, to a look back at her fraught relationship with her mother, pop singer Marie Laforêt (Sophie Verbeeck). Azuelos only saw her estranged parents several times a year; her mother was always on tour. “I would see them maybe for vacation one month, but that’s it,” said Azuelos in our Zoom interview. “She wasn’t a mother,...

I Love America is a charming new romantic comedy, launching on Prime Video – and to mark this joyous occasion, we had the pleasure in interview the leading stars, Sophie Marceau, Colin Woodell and Djanis Bouzyani, as well as director Lisa Azuelos. Below you can find all interviews in their entirety as we discuss the themes of the movie and whether they too view America like a movie set. Marceau looks back across her wonderful career, Azuelos speaks about the remarkable soundtrack in the movie, while Woodell talks about his recent collaboration with Michael Bay in Ambulance. And finally, Bouzyani talks about playing a drag queen, and what that experience was like for him.

Sophie Marceau & Lisa Azuelos

Colin Woodell

Djanis Bouzyani

Synopsis

I Love America follows the adventures of Lisa (Sophie Marceau) who decides to transform her life by leaving Paris for Los Angeles. Her children have left the family nest and her famous mother,...

I Never Sang for My Mother: Azuelos Mines Own Experiences for Dynamic Melodrama

Presenting a narrative partially autobiographical in nature with her latest film, I Love America, director Lisa Azuelos succeeds with her most stirring presentation yet of a mature woman searching for love, meaning, and contentment. Not to imply her previous body of work is marked by fluff and frivolity, but there’s a throbbing pain breaking the surface in what otherwise appears to be a cross-cultural lark about a woman finding unexpected romance.

Since the project is also a love letter to Los Angeles, a city presenting itself as an opportunity for rebirth, the title feels a bit misleading, even inept, as concerns the narrative’s themes and functions, without the handy excuse of intention lost in translation.…...

It’s hard to imagine that the ideal audience for the cringe-inducing French romantic comedy “I Love America” will reject its pat life lessons and hacky jokes, partly because Sophie Marceau, playing a single Frenchwoman living and looking for love in Los Angeles, tends to be a more compelling performer than anything that her character does or says on-screen.

“I Love America” also bats at the sort of low-hanging fruit that, given the right mood, could be of interest to anyone who enjoys watching cornball romantic comedies or even the embarrassing but compulsively watchable “And Just Like That…” revival.

Director Lisa Azuelos (the French comedy “Lol”) and her co-writer Gaël Fierro didn’t overexert themselves as far as their tired jokes about underwhelming dating-app encounters and L.A. pretensions. But Marceau and her co-stars are all front-lit to the point where they look immaculately airbrushed, and the formulaic plot and...

There’s no redeeming this unfunny LA-set comedy starring Sophie Marceau, about a divorced woman’s return to dating

Sophie Marceau delivers the cringe in this clunkingly bad LA dating comedy: tin-eared, cliched, unfunny and misjudged in every horribly unconvincing syllable, sadly sounding as if it has been written by someone who has never been to Los Angeles or met any human beings.

Marceau plays Lisa, a film director (supposedly), who was scarred in childhood by the neglect of a glamorous mother.. Now a divorcee with grownup kids, Lisa finds that her mum’s death has freed her emotionally to start a new life in a touristically imagined LA in the full Eat-Pray-Love-be-annoying sense.

"The way you think is too French." Prime Video has revealed a new official US trailer for a French romantic comedy called I Love America, made by a French writer / director named Lisa Azuelos. This one already debuted in France a few weeks ago and is coming to the US for streaming on Prime Video starting in April. A single woman who decides to take a chance on love again by catapulting her life from Paris to Los Angeles. From awkward dates to touching surprise encounters, she understands the journey to love is a journey towards herself. The main theme of the film focuses on the question of how do you reboot your life after your super famous mother passes away? Go to LA! Sophie Marceau stars as Lisa, with a cast including Djanis Bouzyani, Colin Woodell, Lily Delamere, Keller Wortham, & Carlease Burke. This looks charming and funny, Marceau is always a delight.

Amazon Prime Video has ordered Lisa Azuelos’s “I Love America,” an L.A.-set modern comedy with French star Sophie Marceau as its next French Original movie.

Azuelos, a well-established filmmaker who previously directed Marceau in the hit French movie “Lol” (Laughing Out Loud) co-wrote “I Love America” with Gael Fierro. Autopilot is producing the film which will launch exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in France, and around the world in 2022. The cast also includes Djanis Bouzyani, the actor of Hafsia Herzi’s “You Deserve a Lover.”

Marceau stars as Lisa, a single woman who decides to take a chance on love again by catapulting her life from Paris to Los Angeles. Her children flew the coop and her famous, yet absent mother just passed, so Lisa needs a big change.

While in Los Angeles, Lisa reunites with her best friend Luka (Bouzyani), who found success in America with...

The feature debut by Olivier Treiner and the upcoming film by Lisa Azuelos have been added to the jam-packed slate being showcased at the 23rd Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, organised by UniFrance. Endowed with a solid and mouth-watering line-up of ten titles, the international sales division of the Snd group will be springing into action tomorrow at the 23rd Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris, which, in a change to the usual procedure, is being organised online by Unifrance from 13-15 January (via a dedicated secure site on Cinando). The team headed up by Charlotte Boucon will have particularly high hopes for two new titles that the firm will be kicking off pre-sales for, based on their screenplays. Indeed, standing out on the slate is Julia, the feature debut by Olivier Treiner (César Award for Best Short Film in 2012 for The Piano Tuner), a comedy-drama staged by Wy Productions...

The prevalence of female directors is higher in documentary than fiction or animation, study finds.

The share of films made by female directors in Europe is “growing slowly,” reaching 19% in 2017 according to a study.

Overall, only 17% of European feature films were directed by women between 2003 and 2017, with females representing 21% of all directors that made a European film during that time.

In the report on the gender of directors by the European Audiovisual Observatory, 49% of all women directors included in the study had made just one film since 2003.

The study, which considered more than 21,000 European films, also found that the prevalence...

New Cnc report provides lowdown on budgets, pay and box office for female-directed films in France.

Female directors accounted for 23.3% of feature films shot in France in 2017, according to a new report by the Cnc looking at every aspect of female representation in the country’s film and TV industry between 2008 and 2017.

The comprehensive 122-page study, released to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8, is a joint study between France’s National Cinema Centre and Audiens, the body which manages compulsory social security payments for film and TV professionals

The study showedt between 2008 to 2017, the number of films...

Titles include The Best Is Yet To Come, Sweetheart and Let’s Dance.

Pathé International has unveiled a raft of Efm sales, led by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patelliere’s The Best Is Yet To Come starring Fabrice Fabrice Luchini and Patrick Bruel as old friends making up for lost time.

The comedy pre-sold to Italy (Lucky Red), Germany (Constantin), Spain (Vertigo), Portugal (Cinemundo), Canada (Az Films), Greece (Feelgood), Belgium (Alternative Films) and Switzerland (Pathé Ag).

In other deals Lisa Azuelos’s rom-com Sweetheart has sealed deals in Italy (I Wonder pictures), Germany (Alamode), Portugal (Cinemundo), Canada (MK...

Paris — Lisa Azuelos’ tender drama “Sweetheart” follows single mom Heloise (Sandrine Kiberlaine) as she gets ready to bid adieu to her college age daughter, Jade (Thaïs Alessandrin).

Facing her soon-to-empty-nest with bittersweet apprehension, Heloise tries to capture every last moment on camera, with her trusty iPhone never too far from her side.

In that sense, the film, which is screening on Friday, January 18 as part of UniFrance’s Rendez Vous with French Cinema ahead of its domestic release on March 13, wrangles an appealing mix of text and subtext. Actress Alessandrin is Azuelos’ own daughter, and the director happily asserts that she made the film to work through her own feelings when confronted with a similar situation. Variety chatted to Azuelos in the run-up to the Rendez-Vous.

“Sweetheart” is something of a companion piece to your 2008 film “Lol (Laughing Out Loud),” which was also about a mother-daughter relationship and explored the effects of new media.

Kicking off on Jan. 17 with the world premiere of Philippe de Chauveron’s “Serial Bad Weddings 2,” the 21st edition of the UniFrance Rendez-Vous in Paris will showcase a flurry of French comedies, biopics and a raft of documentaries.

The Rendez-Vous in Paris, organized by the promotion org UniFrance, will take place over five days and will bring together 481 buyers from 56 countries, as well as 45 French sales companies.

Besides “Serial Bad Weddings 2,” the sequel of the smash hit film which grossed over $148 million, the anticipated comedy highlights set to have their market premieres at the Rendez-Vous include Hugo Gelin’s “Love at Second Sight,” Philippe Lacheau’s “City Hunter,” Eric Lavaine’s “No Filter,” Lisa Azuelos’s “Sweetheart,” Louis-Julien Petit’s “Invisibles” and Bertrand Blier’s “Heavy Duty.”

Sold by Studiocanal, “Love at Second Sight” is a romantic comedy which marks Gelin’s follow-up to the Omar Sy starrer “Two is a Family.

One Wild Moment (Un moment d’égarement) Under the Milky Way Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Director: Jean-François Richet Screenwriter: Claude Berri, Lisa Azuelos, Lisa Azuelos Cast: Vincent Cassel, François Cluzet, Lola Le Lann, Alice Isaaz, Louka Meliava, Noémie Merlant Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 9/7/18 Opens: September 25, 2018 on VOD When you see a guy […]

The post One Wild Moment Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Red carpet protest highlighted fact only 82 women have been honoured in Official Selection over 71 editions of festival.

Cate Blanchett and Agnes Varda led 82 female industry figures in a silent ascent of the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday protesting the lack of female representation at the event over its 71 editions.

Moving, historic, 82 women from all countries and professions in cinema have just made the red carpet entrance for Les Filles Du Soleil (Girls Of The Sun) by Eva Husson. #Cannes2018 #Competition pic.twitter.com/0YY9SNbRqg

— Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) May 12, 2018

Other stars joining the protest...

At the start of April, a spattering of American and French journalists gathered, Champagne in hand, at the home of French consul general to Los Angeles Christophe Lemoine for the lineup announcement of the 22nd City of Lights, City of Angels film festival, which kicks off tonight with Eric Barbier’s Romain Gary biopic “Promise at Dawn.” It was the perfect setting to announce a film about the French writer, a former Los Angeles consul general himself, who managed to keep one foot in his native land and another in Hollywood, through both his diplomatic appointment and his marriage to Jean Seberg. Colcoa has been striving to strike a similar balance for the past two decades.

Initially commissioned as the flagship project of the Franco-American Cultural Fund — a joint project among the MPAA, DGA, WGA and France’s Sacem — Colcoa provides a week’s worth of French film premieres in the middle of L.

Colcoa is keeping up with the times. Now in its twenty-first year, the lauded French film festival, sponsored by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, has added a pair of forward-thinking new categories for its newest edition. This year will include a virtual reality program and a web series competition, in addition to its Cinema, Television and Shorts competitions.

“These two new popular formats offer more opportunities to showcase the creativity of French producers and filmmakers as well as the diversity of French production,” said François Truffart, Colcoa Executive Producer and Artistic Director. “While entertainment is still the key word for the program, with a balanced mix of comedies and dramas, several topical issues will cover the program this year, including the environment, discrimination, racism, terrorism, and the role of the artist in society. More than ever, Colcoa will offer a unique opportunity to see these universal topics from different angles.”

Read...

Event backed by Franco-American Cultural Fund to showcase Vr, web series for first time.

Thirty-four features and documentaries will compete for the Colcoa Cinema Awards as part of the 21st Colcoa French Film Festival that runs from April 24-May 2 in Hollywood.

The competition kicks off on April 24 with the North American premiere of Claude Lelouch’s Everyone’s Life and ends on May 2 with the North American premiere of Eric Lavaine’s new rom-com You Choose starring Alexandra Lamy.

The line-up includes Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Stephane Brizet’s A Woman’s Life (pictured), Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay, Lisa Azuelos’s Dalida, and Marie-Camille Mansion-Chaar’s Heaven Will Wait.

The event will showcase a record 82 films, television series and web series, 70 of which will compete for the Colcoa Awards.

The festival includes the After 10 Series, Colcoa Classics, Colcoa.Doc World Cinema Produced by France, Focus On A Filmmaker dedicated to Brizé, Film Noir Series...

Born in Egypt into an Italian family, Dalida reigned as one of France’s most famous singers from the late 1950s through the 1980s, with a repertoire of hits as vast and varied as her private life was tumultuous and tragic. A career and existence ripe for a biographical movie, then, and Dalida from French writer-director Lisa Azuelos (Lol) does try to pack in an awful lot in its two-hour running time. This might be part of the problem, however, as the glitzy drama succumbs to quite a few of the usual biopic-of-the-week symptoms, including a near-constant preference for plot and...

Superstar French singer Dalida played by lookalike Italian model turned actress Sveva Alviti Photo: Luc Roux

French cinema seems obsessed with making films about legendary singers from Edith Piaf (La Vie En Rose) and Serge Gainsbourg to Claude François (My Way or Clo-Clo as it was known in France).

Director Lisa Azuelos presents Dalida for the opening of the 19th Rendez-vous with French Cinema watched by Unifrance’s Isabelle Giordano Photo: Richard Mowe The latest recipient for the treatment is Dalida, an Italian-French singer who had a traumatic childhood in Egypt before she turned entertainer, selling more than 170 million records before her suicide in 1987. Her life veered between adulation and depression, complicated romantic entanglements, and her inability to have children after an abortion.

The film has just opened on French screens and was shown last night (January 12) to buyers attending the 19th Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema, which showcases new...

Reda Kateb to star as legendary jazz guitarist while Pathé will also launch sales on Marion Cotillard-Guillaume Canet comedy Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Pathé International is set to launch sales on a quartet of new titles in Cannes, led by Guillaume Canet’s mid-life crisis comedy Rock ‘n’ Roll, in which he stars as himself opposite Marion Cotillard as his wife and Django Reinhardt drama Django

“It’s sort of Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard playing themselves but not quite. It’s a fantastic concept. It’s sort of based on their real life together but it’s not. It’s very sarcastic, very funny,” says Sauzay of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Canet stars as Guillaume Canet, a 42-year-old actor who decides to overhaul his life when a beautiful young co-star on a film he is shooting tells him he is no longer ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ or high-up on her list of ‘bangable’ actors.

The actor-director...

Reda Kateb to star as legendary jazz guitarist while Pathe will also continue to sell Marion Cotillard-Guillaume Canet comedy Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Pathé International has boarded sales on Etienne Comar’s upcoming biopic Django Melodies starring French actor Reda Kateb [pictured] as the legendary French jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.

The feature focuses on Reinhardt’s adventures during World War Two when he tried to flee France to escape persecution by the Nazi because of his Roma ethnicity.

The jazz guitarist – who co-founded the iconic Quintette du Hot Club de France with violinist Stéphane Grappelli in the 1930s - was at the peak of his career when war broke out in 1939, performing regularly in the top clubs of Paris as well as collaborating with Us artists such as Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie.

It is a directorial debut for Colmar, who is best known as screenwriter on Of Gods And Men and producer on some 20 titles, including...

One Wild Moment

Director: Jean-Francois Richet // Writers: Lisa Azuelos, Claude Berri (original film), Jean-Francois Richet

Jean-Francois Richet won a Cesar for his 1996 debut, Inner City, but snagged international attention for his Us remake of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 back in 2005 before directing his more notable exploration of the French gangster Jacques Mesrine, which starred Vincent Cassel in a pair of 2008 titles. This coming year will see Richet unveiling a Mel Gibson headlined film, Blood Father, but we’re more interested in his remake of Claude Berri’s 1977 film here known as One Wild Moment, starring Cassel and Francois Cluzet as friends that take their teenage daughters on vacation, though one of them has an indiscreet liaison with the other’s kid. Sounds fantastically uncomfortable.

Cast: Vincent Cassel, Francois Cluzet

Producer: La Petite Reine’s Thomas Langmann (The Search)

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available.

Release Date: We’re...

-Courtney Enlow

In 2014, we were all about that bass. But Lina Esco and her friends and supporters were thinking a bit more northern; they were all about that basic human right to bare nipples.

The year of nippletasticness has been replete with freedom-fighting famous ladies, from free spirits like Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne, and Scout Willis…

[Photo Credit: @caradelevingne]

To moms who want to breastfeed without shame like, Alyssa Milano…

Wait! I don’t get it. No disrespect to Kim but… people are offended by my breastfeeding selfies & are fine with her (amazing) booty cover?

— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) November 12, 2014

To funny ladies making a serious point like, Chelsea Handler.

Taking this down is sexist. I have every right to show I have a better body than Putin. pic.twitter.com/SFih1Aa17x — Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) October 31, 2014

And it’s all culminated with the release of Esco’s directorial feature debut,...

-Courtney Enlow

In 2014, we were all about that bass. But Lina Esco and her friends and supporters were thinking a bit more northern; they were all about that basic human right to bare nipples.

The year of nippletasticness has been replete with freedom-fighting famous ladies, from free spirits like Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne, and Scout Willis…

[Photo Credit: @caradelevingne]

To moms who want to breastfeed without shame like, Alyssa Milano…

Wait! I don’t get it. No disrespect to Kim but… people are offended by my breastfeeding selfies & are fine with her (amazing) booty cover?

— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) November 12, 2014

To funny ladies making a serious point like, Chelsea Handler.

Taking this down is sexist. I have every right to show I have a better body than Putin. pic.twitter.com/SFih1Aa17x — Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) October 31, 2014

And it’s all culminated with the release of Esco’s directorial feature debut,...

The distributor has acquired North American rights to the politically charged drama from Disruptive Films and Emotion Pictures.

Lina Esco’s directed from a screenplay by Hunter Richards based on true events surrounding the female protest group in New York.

Lola Kirke, Esco, Casey Labow (pictured), Zach Grenier, Monique Coleman and Griffin Newman star.

Esco produces alongside Richards and Lisa Azuelos, while Julien Madon, Dominique Romano and Lisa Momberger serve as executive producers.

Gregory Chambet and Dimitri Stephanides of WTFilms negotiated the deal for the filmmakers.

Claude Lelouch’s We Love You, You Bastard to open Hollywood event.

The Franco-American Cultural Fund (Facf) has announced the programme for the 18th Annual City Of Lights, City Of Angels (Colcoa) film festival, set to run from April 21-28.

Tthe festival will present a total of 41 features, including three international premieres, 17 North American or Us premieres, 16 West Coast premieres and 20 new shorts.

“Colcoa has become not only a showcase but a brand to promote French films in the Us,” said Colcoa executive producer and artistic director François Truffart.

“Diversity remains the main feature of this 18th spectrum of French creativity, and also because American tastes for foreign films are actually quite varied.”

Colcoa will open on April 21 with the North American premiere of Claude Lelouch’s We Love You, You Bastard starring Johnny Hallyday, Sandrine Bonnaire and Eddy Mitchell. The film opens in France this week.

Closing the festival on April 28 are two films that will...

Cinéast(e)s and Action! French & American Women Filmmakers with Deborah Kampmeier, Rebecca Zlotowski, Axelle Ropert, Stacie Passon, Julie Gayet, Isabelle Giordano, Ry Russo-Young, Katell Quillévéré and Justine Triet at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze On International Women’s Day at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York, "not a filmmaker" Julie Gayet presented Cinéast(e)s: Women Filmmakers she made with Mathieu Busson. Directors interviewed include Agnès Varda, Mia Hansen-Løve, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Josiane Balasko, Julie Delpy, Lola Doillon, Sophie Letourneur, Lisa Azuelos, Rebecca Zlotowski, and Katell Quillévéré.

Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York filmmakers participating in the panel discussion moderated by Isabelle Giordano, executive director of uniFrance films, were Justine Triet, Axelle Ropert, Rebecca Zlotowski, Katell Quillévéré along with Us directors, Stacie Passon, Deborah Kampmeier, and Ry Russo-Young.

President of the French Institute Alliance Française Marie-Monique Steckel welcomed the participants.

On the eve of this week’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris, Melanie Goodfellow examines why the French film industry looks set for a challenging 2014.

Barely two years ago, the French cinema industry was riding high: record audiences, record exports and seven Oscars for The Artist. French film was not only cool, it was also very, very successful.

But as the industry’s main players gather for the Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris (Jan 10-20), the mood will be gloomy: 2013 was tough at home and abroad, 2014 threatens to be even tougher.

Some wonder how Europe’s most powerful film industry will emerge from the perfect storm of recession at home, the disruptive force of technology and threats to what was once viewed as the one of the most successful film financing systems in the world.

“The mood across the industry is very tense and nervous at the moment, whatever the sector...

In 2010 the film Lol was complete and ready for release, yet it only made its way to a theatrical audience (barely) earlier this year. The combined star power of Demi Moore and Miley Cyrus just wasn’t enough to market this technology savvy teenage coming-of-age story. But after the dust has settled and everyone has moved on Lol manages to almost become a romance worth watching, even if only once. It’s not well-written or well-acted, but it does speak for the current generation of teens, which might be a little scary for everyone else.

It’s a new school year for Lola (Miley Cyrus) and friends, which means new relationships with new boys. She’s had her heart broken by one friend, but soon realizes his best friend just might be the answer to her love life depression. All of this happens very fast as Lola picks up a...

This week: A serial killer wrecks havoc at a high school in "Detention," the meta horror-comedy starring "Hunger Games" tribute Josh Hutcherson.

Also new this week is the teen coming-of-age flick "Lol" with Miley Cyrus, the impressive Blu-ray collection "Forever Marilyn" featuring seven of Marilyn Monroe's best films and a new edition of "Total Recall" on Blu-ray.

'Detention'

Box Office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes: 33% Rotten

Storyline: This meta horror-comedy hybrid stars Josh Hutcherson and Shanley Caswell as students who are trying to survive their final year of high school as a serial killer called "Cinderhella" stalks the student body. Dane Cook stars as the master of detention, Principal Verge.

Extras! Both the DVD and Blu-ray contain screen tests and the "Riffing with Dane" featurette.

We Say: Its spirited self-referential shtick doesn't put "Detention" on par with "The Cabin in the Woods" or any of the "Scream" movies,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 31, 2012

Price: DVD $19.98, Blu-ray $24.99

Studio: Lionsgate

Miley! Moore! Lol!

Almost-20-year-old teen queen Miley Cyrus (The Last Song) stars in the email-texting-social networking romantic comedy film Lol.

As the movie opens, Lola (Cyrus), or “Lol,” as her friends call her, is digging into a new year of high school, all the while working to find the right balance between school, friends, romance and a worried mother (Demi Moore, The Joneses). Broken-hearted by her ex, Lol’s world is romantically and comedically turned upside down when she realizes her best friend, musician Kyle (Douglas Booth, TV’s The Pillars of the Earth), could possibly be the love of her life…

Okay, now here’s the last line of the snopsis as it reads on the press release: “In her quest towards independence, self-identity and young adulthood, Lol discovers that while Facebook ‘status’ is easy to change, true relationships are worth the effort.

The Angels' Share (15)

(Ken Loach, 2012, UK/Fra) Paul Brannigan, John Henshaw, Gary Maitland, Jasmin Riggins, Roger Allam, William Ruane. 101 mins

If anyone can cut it at Cannes, Ken can, and this recent surprise Jury Prize-winner sees Loach doing what he does so well: dignifying ordinary lives and chronicling social history as it happens. The tone is a little lighter this time, though, as we follow a violent young offender's potentially fruitful encounter with the whisky industry, thus bringing together the best and worst of Scotland.

Prometheus (15)

(Ridley Scott, 2012, Us) Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron. 124 mins

With all the zealous promotion and yet tight secrecy, this long-awaited Alien prequel couldn't live up to fans' expectations, could it? There's no way of telling at the time of writing, so let's just say it'll be a brilliant triumph, and a complete disaster.

The Turin Horse (15)

(Béla Tarr, 2011, Hun/Fra/Ger/Swi/Us) János Derszi,...

A movie expert weighs in on why the teen dramedy was a box-office flop.

By Jocelyn Vena

Miley Cyrus in "Lol"

Photo: Lionsgate

Last Friday, Miley Cyrus' soapy teen dramedy "Lol" opened to a limited release in nine states. The film, by all accounts, didn't perform the way a film starring Cyrus, "Twilight" star Ashley Greene and one-time screen siren Demi Moore, might be expected to.

"Lol," an English-language adaptation of a French Film of the same name, grossed only $46,500 in 105 theaters. While it's hard to tell why the film underperformed, it seems that a lack of marketing leading up to its debut may have played a role in that. The flick follows the story of a teen, Lola (played by Cyrus), as she faces the strife of first love in a world driven by technology.

"It's really hard to say because we've heard absolutely nothing about it. I...

A movie expert weighs in on why the teen dramedy was a box-office flop.

By Jocelyn Vena

Miley Cyrus in "Lol"

Photo: Lionsgate

Last Friday, Miley Cyrus' soapy teen dramedy "Lol" opened to a limited release in nine states. The film, by all accounts, didn't perform the way a film starring Cyrus, "Twilight" star Ashley Greene and one-time screen siren Demi Moore, might be expected to.

"Lol," an English-language adaptation of a French Film of the same name, grossed only $46,500 in 105 theaters. While it's hard to tell why the film underperformed, it seems that a lack of marketing leading up to its debut may have played a role in that. The flick follows the story of a teen, Lola (played by Cyrus), as she faces the strife of first love in a world driven by technology.

"It's really hard to say because we've heard absolutely nothing about it. I...

Lol, indeed.

"Lol" -- Miley Cyrus's long-delayed coming-of-age comedy -- was released into a scant 105 theaters last weekend and earned just $46,500, according to Len Klady of Movie City News. That works out to roughly $440 per theater, or the price of an iPad 2 -- before taxes.

Lionsgate, the studio that released "Lol," did not report official box office numbers for the film.

Cyrus made the PG-13-rated "Lol" back in 2010. The film is based on a popular French film of the same name, and includes frank sexual discussions between Cyrus and her onscreen mother, played by Demi Moore.

"I really thought this movie could be universal," Lisa Azuelos, the director of both the American and French versions of "Lol," told Ben Fritz and Amy Kaufman of the Los Angeles Times. "Usually teen movies are tender or scary or have vampires in them, but they’re never realistic. This story isn...

While many moviegoers might want to forget about Miley Cyrus‘s “film career” as a whole, it looks like they might not have to work so hard – one of the studios she’s completed a film for seems bent on doing it on their own. Cyrus starred in Lisa Azuelos‘s Lol, the English-language adaptation of the writer-director’s 2008 French film of the same name, back in 2010, and when it was picked up by Lionsgate for domestic distribution, the studio initially seemed excited about the project. Lionsgate’s then-production president, Allie Shearmur, said that it was “the kind of smart, fresh and accessible comedy that…is a great fit for Lionsgate’s release slate.” That’s apparently changed, however, as the L.A. Times (via Cinema Blend) reports that the studio has finally set the film for a release that clearly spells out how little they care about it – giving it a limited release in just seven...