Elie Wajeman’s The Anarchists, starring Palme d’Or winner Adele Exarchopoulos and Cesar winner Tahar Rahim, to open Critics’ Week

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Cannes Critics’ Week, devoted to first and second features, has unveiled the line-up for its 54th edition (May 14-22).

In total, 1,750 shorts and 1,000 features were submitted for consideration.

Artistic director Charles Tesson said this year’s poster - showing actress Lou de Laâge, seemingly embracing the air on a beach - captured the spirit of the parallel section.

“On the poster the actress Lou de Laâge embraces the open horizon in front of her,” he said. “This wonderful energy and amazing life force it carries embody the desire leading us to discover the new breath of fresh air in cinema worldwide.”

The section will open with French Elie Wajeman’s second film The Anarchists (Les Anarchistes) set in Paris in 1899, starring the reportedly sizzling on-screen couple of Tahar Rahim and Adèle Exarchopoulos...

Rani Massalha and Marie Legrand’s new French production outfit Films Du Tambour attended the Doha Film Institute’s inaugural Qumra event this week to talk about the company’s ambitious slate of international co-productions.

The first feature film under the Films Du Tambour banner, Arab & Tarzan Abunasser’s Dégradé, has Doha Film Institute backing and was selected as one of Qumra’s 29 projects to get special mentoring this week.

The producers – Massalha and Legrand alongside Rashid Abdehamed of Made In Palestine – showed 15 minutes of Dégradé to film festival experts at Qumra.

The 27-year-old brothers did not attend because they are in the final stages of post-production in Paris. They are expected to premiere the film at a major festival later this year; the brothers’ short Condom Lead premiered in Competition at Cannes 2013.

Elle Driver handles sales on Dégradé, which has been one of the most buzzed-about titles at Qumra. Le Pacte is...

Other new projects include prison drama Jailbirds (Taularde) starring Sophie Marceau.

Paris-based sales company Elle Driver has taken on world sales of Palestinian filmmakers Tarzan and Arab’s black comedy Dégradé capturing life on the Gaza Strip.

The film joins a strong Efm slate, which also includes Golden Bear contenders Nobody Wants the Night and Diary of a Chambermaid as well as Emmanuelle Bercot’s Standing Tall.

Twin brothers Tarzan and Arab’s short film Condom Lead, revolving around the complications of making love in a conflict zone, premiered at Cannes in 2013.

Their debut feature is set against the backdrop of the real-life liberation of a stolen lioness from the compound of the Hassanein family, one of Gaza’s most powerful clans.

“We’ll be showing first images of the film which is based on true events in Gaza in 2007,” said Elle Driver co-chief Adeline Fontan Tessaur, ahead of the European Film Market (Feb 5-13).

The film focuses...

The Dubai Film Market (Dfm) enjoyed one of its buzziest editions to date this year, with a big increase in screenings, deals and meetings.

Some 1,400 participants benefitted from a new set-up which put 30 exhibition booths in close proximity with the producers and filmmakers at Dfm’s co-financing events – the Dubai Film Connection (Dfc) and Interchange. New national attendees included Algeria, Thailand and France.

“The general feeling was that the new set-up really worked. It was a lot easier for people to bump into one another – it was really buzzy,” said Dfm’s international business manager Pascal Diot.

The Dfm’s digital video library, the Cinetech also registered at increase in screenings. There were some 1,151 screenings by films professionals as opposed to 1,042 in 2012.

The five most popular titles by midday on Thursday were Mohamed Khan’s Factory Girl, Gaza Strip-set short Condom Lead, Hany Abu-Assad’s Omar, Emirati short Don’t Leave Me and Stable Unstable, about...

Paris-based sales company Wide House has picked up international rights to Mahmoud Kaabour’s Champ Of The Camp, a musical documentary capturing life in the UAE’s labour camps, which premieres at Diff tomorrow (Dec 7).

The film explores life in the camps, housing thousands of South Asian labourers on the outskirts of the city, through the Bollywood singing and trivia competitions they run for entertainment. These X-Factor style contests have been running for seven years in the camps, drawing some 10,000 entrants this year.

The world premiere of the film will be held in the shadow of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa skyscraper, which one of the protagonists of the film helped to build, in a free open-air screening tomorrow evening.

“It’s great the film is getting this sort of recognition in Mena before heading to other international festivals and markets in 2014,” said Wide House chief Anais Clanet.

She said Wide House had been approached by Kaabour’s Dubai-based...