Aimee Morris's Posts

MADELEINE COLLINS starring Virginie Efira Opens in theaters August 18

Posted by Aimee Morris on August 3, 2023 at 3:29pm

Greenwich Entertainment is pleased to announce the US release of the twisted and emotionally taut drama MADELEINE COLLINS, directed and co-written by Antoine Barraud, with French-Belgian star Virginie Efira (most recently acclaimed for her performance in Alice Winocour’s Revoir Paris) as a woman leading a secret double life. MADELEINE COLLINS will open on Friday, August 18 in New York (IFC Center) and Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal and Laemmle’s Town Center, Encino) followed by nationwide Amazon and Apple TV release on August 29.

Judith (Virginie Efira)’s life is split between two households in two countries. In Switzerland, she is Margot, a translator who lives with Abdel (Quim Gutierrez) and the little girl they are raising. In France, she is known as Judith and lives a glamorous life with acclaimed orchestra conductor Melvil (Bruno Salomone) and their two older boys. This fragile balance, based on complex lies and tightly scheduled back-and-forth trips, gradually begins to crack and veer dangerously off the rails. The mysterious reasons for her lies, and the complications that ensue from her efforts to keep the two lives separate, propel the third narrative feature from Antoine Barraud anchored by a virtuoso turn from Efira in all of her character’s many guises.

Barraud’s first feature, The Sinkholes, with Mathieu Amalric, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival; his second feature, Portrait of the Artist, with director Bertrand Bonello, Pascal Greggory and Jeanne Balibar premiered at the Berlin Film Festival’s Forum. He has also produced films by auteurs including Tsai Ming-liang (Madam Butterfly), Joao Pedro Rodrigues (The Ornithologist, Locarno's Director's Award), and avant-garde filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin (Age is…).

"[Virginie Efira]’s central performance carries Antoine Barraud’s intriguing, cleverly structured psychological thriller in which a woman attempts to sustain a fraught double life. Elegantly handled and suspenseful...The spider’s web of a plot hooks you.” — Allan Hunter, Screen

"Alongside Efira’s fraught and measured performance, which shows how well she can deal with many conflicting emotions within the same scene, the strong supporting cast includes Israeli auteur Nadav Lapid, who earnestly plays a lowlife forger smitten by Judith (or Margot or Madeleine), and actress-director Valérie Donzelli”-- Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS Starring Juliette Binoche Opens August 11

Posted by Aimee Morris on July 24, 2023 at 3:01pm

Cohen Media Group is pleased to announce the US release of BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, filmmaker and novelist Emmanuel Carrère’s adaptation of investigative journalist Florence Aubenas’ best-selling nonfiction book The Night Cleaner. In this longtime passion project for Juliette Binoche, the Academy Award® winner plays a reporter going undercover to investigate the exploitation of France’s workers without job security at the height of the economic crisis.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS will open on Friday, August 11 in New York (Quad Cinema) and Los Angeles (Laemmle’s Royal) followed by a national expansion.

Renowned reporter Marianne Winckler (Juliette Binoche) goes undercover, immersing herself in the crowd of job seekers without special qualifications, eventually landing a job as a night cleaner on a ferry that crosses the English Channel. As she learns more about the plight of these workers living on the margins, Marianne grows closer to her new female comrades, particularly single mother of three Christèle (non-professional actress Hélène Lambert, nominated for a César), while simultaneously beginning to harbor ethical concerns that she will be complicit in their exploitation when she returns to Paris and writes a book about her experiences.

One of France’s most acclaimed international reporters for leading publications Le Monde, Libération and Le Nouvel Observateur, Florence Aubenas agreed to have The Night Cleaner adapted for the screen only if Emmanuel Carrère directed it. One of France’s foremost authors, described by The New Yorker as "France's best-known writer of literary nonfiction,” he is best known for his award-winning "nonfiction novels" including The Adversary, (adapted for the screen by Nicole Garcia), Lives Other than My Own, My Life as a Russian Novel, The Kingdom, Yoga, as well as fictionalized biographies of Philip K. Dick (I Am Alive and You Are Dead), Russian avant-gardiste turned ultra-right-wing politician (Limonov), and many essays on politics, culture, and crime, Carrère has been profiled in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and The Nation, among others. Starting out as a film critic, Carrère’s first book was a monograph on Werner Herzog. He has served on the competition juries of the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS marks his return to directing for the first time since the 2005 screen adaptation of his book La Moustache.

Juliette Binoche is the subject of a retrospective to be held at the Quad Cinema from August 4th to 10th leading up to the release of BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. Films selected from the

Academy Award®, César,

Berlin, Cannes, and Venice

Best Actress Award winner’s distinguished f

ilmography

include

The Unbeareable Lightness of Being, Caché, Certified Copy, Clouds of Sils Maria and Three Colors: Blue.

TWO TICKETS TO GREECE Starring Laure Calamy + Kristin Scott Thomas Opens July 14

Posted by Aimee Morris on June 22, 2023 at 11:03am

Greenwich Entertainment is pleased to announce the US theatrical release of TWO TICKETS TO GREECE, an irresistible French comedy about female camaraderie and new beginnings by writer-director Marc Fitoussi (Call My Agent!), starring Best Actress César winner Laure Calamy (Full Time, My Donkey, My Lover & I, Call My Agent!), Olivia Côte (My Donkey, My Lover & I) and Academy Award Nominee Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient, Two Weddings and a Funeral). TWO TICKETS TO GREECE will open on Friday, July 14 in New York (Quad Cinema), Los Angeles (Laemmle’s Santa Monica) and Chicago followed by a national expansion.

Recently divorced, and watching helplessly as her only son leaves home, 40-something Blandine (Olivia Côte) is struggling to find her footing again. When her childhood former best friend Magalie (the deliriously madcap Laure Calamy), loud and fearless, suddenly resurfaces, the two women reconnect, and Blandine reluctantly allows herself to be spontaneous for a change. They decide to take the summer trip to the Greek Islands they had always dreamed of as teenagers, but, as they head off towards their destination, it's apparent that Magalie's very different approach to vacationing - and life - could lead Blandine to her breaking point. Kristin Scott Thomas co-stars as Magalie’s free-spirited expat friend and mentor.

Following her breakthrough role in the hit series Call My Agent!, Laure Calamy has gone on to become one of France’s most popular and versatile actors, winning the Best Actress César Award for Caroline Vignal’s romantic comedy My Donkey, My Lover and I and the Venice Horizons Best Actress award for Eric Gravel’s social drama Full Time.

After majoring in English and art history, Marc Fitoussi attended UCLA’s film school, and has, since his return to France, written and directed eight features including two with Isabelle Huppert, Copacabana (selected for Cannes’ International Critics’ Week) and Paris Follies (aka La Ritournelle). In addition, Fitoussi directed six of the most popular episodes of Call My Agent, with Monica Bellucci, Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Kiberlain, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Sigourney Weaver.

"Delicious. A humanist comedy, where joy rubs shoulders with unexpected emotion" — Télérama

REVOIR PARIS Opens in NY on June 23 at Film at Lincoln Center + IFC Center

Posted by Aimee Morris on June 5, 2023 at 10:00am

Music Box Films is pleased to announce that Alice Winocour’s deeply moving drama REVOIR PARIS starring César Award Best Actress winner Virginie Efira (Other People’s Children) is scheduled to open in New York on Friday, June 23, 2023 at Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Film Center, and Los Angeles on Friday, June 30 at Laemmle’s Royal, with a national expansion to follow.

After surviving a mass shooting in a Paris restaurant, Mia (Virginie Efira) is haunted, unable to resume life as usual, and left with a total blackout where her memories of the traumatic incident should be. Determined to reconstruct the sequence of events and reestablish a sense of normalcy, Mia finds herself repeatedly returning to the bistro where the shooting happened. In the process, she forms bonds with fellow survivors, including banker Thomas (Benoît Magimel) and teenager Félicia (Nastya Golubeva). A poignant, emotional and ultimately hopeful tale on grief and healing, REVOIR PARIS is anchored by a career-best performance by Efira who earned the 2023 César for Best Actress. Although fictional, the film was inspired by Winocour’s own brother’s experiences as a survivor of the Bataclan concert hall 2015 attacks.

Writer-director Alice Winocour, a graduate of the prestigious Paris film school FEMIS, made her feature debut with the historical drama Augustine (Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, Camerimage’s Best Directorial Debut Award); her subsequent films are Disorder with Matthias Schoenarts and Diane Kruger (Special Jury Award Mention, AFI Fest) and Proxima with Eva Green and Matt Dillon (Special Jury Prize, San Sebastian Film Festival; Toronto International Film Festival). Winocour also co-won the Best Original Screenplay César for Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Oscar nominated film Mustang. She is a member of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard jury.

RISE Opens June 2 in New York at Quad Cinema

Posted by Aimee Morris on June 2, 2023 at 9:03am

Elise (Marion Barbeau) thought she had a perfect life: an ideal boyfriend and a promising career as a ballet dancer. It all falls apart the day she catches him cheating on her with her stage backup; and after she suffers an injury on stage, it seems like she might not be able to dance ever again. The path to physical and emotional recovery will lead her away from Paris to a picturesque location in Brittany- where her friends, a new love and freedom of contemporary dance will help her reconnect with her father and most importantly, herself. A heartwarming and inspiring story that tells us how sometimes, the worst thing that could happen may turn out to be the best.

Directed by: Cédric Klapisch

Written by: Santiago Amigorena, Cédric Klapisch

Producers: Cédric Klapisch, Bruno Levy

Cast: Marion Barbeau, Hofesh Shecter, Denis Podalydès, Muriel Robin, Pio Marmaï, François Civil

Music by: Thomas Bangalter, Hofesh Shechter

Choreography by: Hofesh Shechter

OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN Starring Virginie Efira Opens April 21

Posted by Aimee Morris on April 4, 2023 at 2:51pm

OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN

Written and Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski

(Grand Central, Planetarium, An Easy Girl)

Starring Virginie Efira (Elle, Sibyl, Benedetta), Roschdy Zem and Chiara Mastroianni

Opens on Friday, April 21 in New York (Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Film Center) and Los Angeles (Laemmle Royal) followed by a national expansion

Official Selection:

2023 Sundance Film Festival

2023 Lincoln Center’s Rendez Vous with French Cinema

2022 Venice Film Festival

2022 Toronto International Film Festival

Music Box Films is pleased to announce the April 21 US theatrical release of OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN, the deeply moving portrait of a woman, written and directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, starring beloved actress Virginie Efira (Benedetta, Elle, Sibyl). Selected at numerous film festivals including Venice, Sundance and Toronto, OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN will open exclusively in theaters on Friday, April 21 in New York (Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Film Center) and Los Angeles (Laemmle Royal) followed by a national expansion.

In her latest film, acclaimed French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski (Grand Central, Planetarium, An Easy Girl) draws from her own life to depict the emotional trajectory of Rachel (Virginie Efira), a schoolteacher whose desire for a biological child seems increasingly unlikely to be fulfilled (as she’s informed by her gynecologist in a delightful cameo from director Frederick Wiseman). When Rachel starts a relationship with car designer Ali (Roschdy Zem), he’s slow to let her know that he’s a single father, but once she finds out, she quickly grows to love his precocious daughter, Leila (Callie Ferreira-Goncalves). The stresses and strains of close relationships between adults and children are thoughtfully examined in a drama that’s as romantic in its evocation of new love blossoming in Paris as it is clear-headed about the myriad pressures that societal expectations impose on the lives of middle-aged women, with echoes of Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman.

The much in demand Belgian actress Virginie Efira is best known for her work with directors Justine Triet (Victoria, Sibyl) and Paul Verhoeven (Elle, Benedetta), and will next be seen in Alice Winocour’s Revoir Paris (Music Box Films), for which she was recently awarded the César award (French Oscar©) for Best Actress.

Zlotowski is a graduate of the prestigious Paris film school FEMIS and the Ecole Normale Supérieure. A former French literature academic, she went on to write and direct Dear Prudence (Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize Nominee, winner of Prix Louis Delluc for Best First Film,) Grand Central (Cannes Official Selection), Planetarium, with Natalie Portman (Venice Film Festival), and An Easy Girl (SACD Award, Cannes Directors’ Fortnight). OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN is her fifth feature film.

“Bittersweet and beautifully observed” - Guy Lodge, Variety

“Efira does her best work yet” - Jon Frosch, The Hollywood Reporter

"Efira, last seen by most audiences in Benedetta, gives another wondrous performance…The Belgian actor keeps the film together, grounding it with real emotional stakes” - Michael Frank, The Filmstage

EVERYTHING WENT FINE Opens April 14

Posted by Aimee Morris on April 3, 2023 at 1:17pm

EVERYTHING WENT FINE

Written and Directed by François Ozon

(Swimming Pool, Under the Sand, 8 Women, In the House, Frantz, By the Grace of God, Summer of 85, Peter von Kant)

Opens in New York on Friday, April 14 (Quad Cinema) and Los Angeles on Friday, April 21 (Laemmle’s Royal and Town Center)

followed by a national expansion

Starring Sophie Marceau (La Boum, Braveheart, Beyond the Clouds), André Dussolier (Same Old Song, Wild Grass,) Charlotte Rampling (Under the Sand, Swimming Pool, Benedetta, 45 Years,) Géraldine Pailhas (Young and Beautiful, Five Times Two) and Hanna Schygulla (The Marriage of Maria Braun, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Peter von Kant)

**Official Selection: Cannes International Film Festival**

Cohen Media Group is pleased to announce that acclaimed French director François Ozon’s drama EVERYTHING WENT FINE will be released theatrically in NY on Friday, April 14 (Quad Cinema) and LA on April 21 (Laemmle’s Royal and Town Center) followed by a national expansion.

Based on the autobiographical novel by author Emmanuèle Bernheim (who had collaborated on Ozon’s screenplays for Under The Sand, Swimming Pool and Ricky), EVERYTHING WENT FINE is a dramatic change of pace for the genre-hopping director. After a debilitating stroke, 85-year-old art collector André Bernheim (Alain Resnais regular André Dussolier) demands that his daughter Emmanuèle (Sophie Marceau, beloved by French audiences since her teenage debut in the 1980 hit La Boum), help him end life on his own terms. Faced with a painful decision, Emmanuèle, with the grudging support of her younger sister Pascale (Ozon regular Géraldine Pailhas), begins sorting through the processes and bureaucratic hurdles necessary to fulfill her father’s final wish, as she is forced to reconcile her past with a complicated, stubborn, yet charismatic man.

Unsentimental, devastating, yet often humorous, EVERYTHING WENT FINE finds writer-director François Ozon tackling a complex subject with intelligence and sensitivity. Featuring the legendary Charlotte Rampling (Ozon’s Under the Sand) as André’s estranged wife, along with cinema icon Hanna Schygulla (last seen in Ozon’s Peter von Kant) in a key cameo.

One of French cinema's most prolific filmmakers, François Ozon’s vast body of work includes Swimming Pool, 8 Women, By the Grace of God, Frantz, Double Lover, In the House, Potiche, Under the Sand, Peter von Kant and the upcoming The Crime is Mine.

New York’s Quad Cinema will host a week-long retrospective of François Ozon’s films, leading up to the opening of EVERYTHING WENT FINE. “An Ode to Ozon” (April 10-13) features six films from the director’s extensive filmography. Series highlights include 35mm prints of 8 Women and Swimming Pool as well as Cohen Media Group titles In the House, The New Girlfriend, and Double Lover.

“[EVERYTHING WENT FINE]’s honesty and intelligence keep you glued.” David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“Affecting, surprisingly witty..... elegantly written, persuasively performed… a terrific Sophie Marceau and André Dussollier as father and daughter… Ozon’s smart, measured but still deeply human take on a hot subject” — Guy Lodge, Variety

A RADIANT GIRL Opens February 17 in NYC

Posted by Aimee Morris on February 14, 2023 at 3:50pm

Film Movement is pleased to announce that A RADIANT GIRL, beloved French actress Sandrine Kiberlain's highly personal directorial debut, a selection of the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics Week, will open exclusively in theaters in New York (Quad Cinema) on Friday, February 17th, 2023 followed by a national release.

Paris, summer 1942. Irene (Rebecca Marder, nominated for a 2023 César for Best Female Newcomer for her performance), is a vibrant 19-year-old aspiring actress without a care in the world. She is honing her passion for the theater, rehearsing for the entrance exam to the coveted Conservatory, making new friends and discovering love, without realizing that time is running out in Nazi-occupied France, as her close-knit family is watching.

In turns enchanting and devastating, Ms. Kiberlain’s drama, which she also wrote, is not a traditional Holocaust narrative, but a unique coming-of-age tale about the freedoms of youth amidst a changing world, anchored by a star-making performance by Ms. Marder "which more than delivers on the luminous promise of the English title" (Screen Daily). Partly inspired by Ms. Kiberlain’s own family story, the film shows the dangers of complacency in the face of fascism, as well as moments of beauty that are possible even under the hardest of circumstances.

One of France’s most prolific and versatile French stars, Sandrine Kiberlain came to prominence with her Most Promising Actress César-winning performance in Laetitia Masson’s To Have or Not, and has since worked with many of France’s top directors including Alain Resnais (Life of Riley), Jacques Audiard (A Self-Made Hero), Benoît Jacquot (Seventh Heaven), André Téchiné (Being 17), Claude Miller (Betty Fisher and Other Stories), Stéphane Brizé (Mademoiselle Chambon, Another World), Maïwen (Polisse) and Cédric Jimenez (November). She has received nine César nominations and won two César Awards. A RADIANT GIRL marks her feature debut as a writer-director.

Rebecca Marder is a former member of France’s legendary classical theater troupe La Comédie Française where she was admitted at the age of 20. Ms. Marder was selected for the César Academy’s annual "Revelations" list of rising stars leading up to the nomination. She will next be seen as one of the leads in François Ozon’s new film The Crime is Mine opposite Isabelle Huppert.

César nominee FULL TIME starring Laure Calamy (Call My Agent)-Opens Feb 3 NY/Feb 10 LA

Posted by Aimee Morris on January 30, 2023 at 9:11am

Music Box Films is pleased to announce the US release of FULL TIME, writer-director Éric Gravel’s hyper kinetic drama unfolding over one week in the life of a divorced working mother in Paris. Featuring a thrilling performance by rising star Laure Calamy, FULL TIME won the Best Director and Best Actress awards at the Venice Film Festival (Horizons), was selected for MOMA and Film at Lincoln Center’s New Directors New Films series, and just received four César Award nominations for Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Original Score. FULL TIME will open exclusively in theaters on Friday, February 3rd in New York (Quad Cinema), followed by Los Angeles (Laemmle Royal) on Friday, February 10th and a national rollout.

Single mother Julie (Laure Calamy in her second nomination for a Best Actress César) works a grueling job as a head chambermaid in a five-star Parisian hotel. Julie’s daily balance of commuting from her remote suburb into Paris, tenuous childcare and search for a new job to get her out of debt, becomes unmanageable during a paralyzing transport strike in Paris. Literally running from dawn to sunset to get to her job and back home in time to fetch her children, Julie is constantly on the verge of a breakdown. When she finally gets a job interview for a position more suited to her skill set, Julie has to walk a very tightrope between keeping her current job, and sneaking out while calling on co-workers to cover for her as more obstacles pile up in front of her

With a pulsating score by César nominee Irène Drésel combined with handheld camera and masterful editing by César nominee Mathilde van de Moortel, FULL TIME propels the viewer from one scene to the next at lightning speed. Eric Gravel’s second directorial outing, from his own César nominated screenplay, puts him at the forefront of France’s most promising new directorial voices while confirming Laure Calamy as one of the most gifted French actresses of her generation.

"Éric Gravel’s 'Full Time' potently blends the social realism of the Dardenne brothers with the nerve-racking intensity of the Safdies’ 'Uncut Gems'.”- Film Comment, Vikram Murthi

“...a propulsively intense piece of filmmaking…” Screen International, Wendy Ide

THE MAN IN THE BASEMENT Starring François Cluzet, Jérémie Renier and Bérénice Bejo Opening January 27

Posted by Aimee Morris on January 6, 2023 at 12:06pm

Greenwich Entertainment is pleased to announce that Philippe Le Gay’s taut psychological French thriller based on a true story, THE MAN IN THE BASEMENT, will open in New York at The Quad Cinema on Friday, January 27 (Holocaust International Remembrance Day) followed by Los Angeles and a national expansion.

A benign real estate deal becomes a sinister standoff between a young Parisian French couple (Jérémie Renier and Academy Award nominee Bérénice Bejo) and a dangerous negationist. Simon Sandberg, a Jewish Parisian architect (Renier) sells his flat’s unused cellar to a seemingly normal and well-mannered former history teacher, Jacques Fonzic (The Untouchables’ François Cluzet). But when Fonzic takes up residence in the cellar, the stranger’s secret life emerges. Slowly and methodically, his far-right, radicalized beliefs about Judaism and conspiracy theories ensnare Simon’s very existence, driving him to more and more desperate strategies to evict the man.

What ensues is a riveting cat-and-mouse game between Fonzic and Sandberg as the increasingly menacing buyer insinuates himself with their naive teenage daughter, turning the family’s idyllic world upside down. Impeccable acting and a nightmare scenario drive this tense and gripping thriller, based on a true story, to its logical and frightening conclusion.

Directed by Philippe Le Guay. Written by Philippe Le Guay, Gilles Taurand, Marc Weitzmann. Cinematography by Guillaume Deffontaines. Music by Bruno Coulais. Produced by Anne-Dominique Toussaint. A Greenwich Entertainment release.

HOLD ME TIGHT Starring Vicky Krieps Opens Sept 9 in NY

Posted by Aimee Morris on August 25, 2022 at 12:31pm

Official Selection

Cannes International Film Festival

Rotterdam International Film Festival

Lincoln Center’s Rendez Vous with French Cinema

Kino Lorber is pleased to announce the September 9th theatrical release of Mathieu Amalric's deeply emotional drama HOLD ME TIGHT, a selection of the Cannes International Film Festival, nominated for Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay César Awards. HOLD ME TIGHT will open in New York at Film at Lincoln Center and the Angelika Film Center, followed by Los Angeles on Friday, September 23 at Laemmle Royal, and select top theatrical engagements.

Adapted from a stage play by Claudine Galéa, HOLD ME TIGHT stars Vicky Krieps as Clarisse, a mother coping with great emotional upheaval, and Arieh Worthalter (Girl) as Marc, the husband she leaves behind. Krieps gives a riveting performance as a woman on the run from her family for reasons that aren't immediately clear. Amalric’s sophisticated narrative alternates between scenes of Clarisse's road trip and of Marc as he cares for their two children, Paul, and Lucie, a pianist prodigy. While giving clues along the way, Amalric keeps viewers uncertain as to the reality of what they're seeing until the film’s final moments.

With a dual career as an acclaimed actor (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, My Sex Life…or How I Got into an Argument, Grand Budapest Hotel, Munich) and writer-director (On Tour, Barbara, The Blue Room), Amalric's sixth directorial outing is his most ambitious to date. His virtuosic, daringly fluid portrait of a woman in crisis is a poignant and unpredictable story about love, absence, grief, and memory.

Born in Luxemburg and educated at Zürich’s University of the Arts, Vicky Krieps came to international attention with her performance opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. Her other notable films include Bergman Island by Mia Hansen-Love, Old by M. Night Shyamalan, and the upcoming Corsage, The Three Musketeers and Sexual Healing.

HOLD ME TIGHT’s soundtrack includes piano pieces by Ravel, Debussy, Messiaen, Beethoven, Rameau, Schönberg and Rachmaninov; the film features clips of legendary pianist Martha Argerich performing Ravel, Mozart and Chopin.

“Vicky Krieps in a tour-de-force performance. An impressively shot and performed memory piece.” – Boyd van Hoeij, The Hollywood Reporter

“A gritty, engrossing tale of love and loss. Krieps delivers her strongest performance since 'Phantom Thread'.” – Adam Solomons, Little White Lies

“'Hold Me Tight' achieves something quite remarkable, blurring the line between reality and imaginings to burrow into the heart of grief and loss in ways that are also life-affirming.” – Lee Marshall, Screen Daily

MY DONKEY, MY LOVER & I Opens July 22 in NYC

Posted by Aimee Morris on July 6, 2022 at 11:02am

Greenwich Entertainment is pleased to announce the US release of Caroline Vignal’s irresistible French comedic road movie MY DONKEY, MY LOVER & I, starring Laure Calamy (Call My Agent) in a Best Actress César Award-winning performance as the delightfully zany Antoinette, a heart-broken schoolteacher, who impulsively goes on a six-day hike to follow her lover, accompanied by a cantankerous donkey named Patrick. This understated charmer became a sleeper hit in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

MY DONKEY, MY LOVER & I is scheduled to open on Friday July 22 with select engagements in top 50 markets including New York’s (Angelika Film Center) and Los Angeles (Laemmle’s Royal).

Primary school teacher Antoinette (Laure Calamy) is elated about her upcoming vacation with her married lover, Vladimir (Benjamin Lavernhe), but their plans are upended when his wife books a surprise hiking trip. On an impulse, Antoinette heads to the same mountainous region of the Cévennes National Park, with an itinerary inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic 1878 memoir Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes.

Completely unversed in the ways of the wilderness, Antoinette forges quick bonds with an idealistic innkeeper (Marie Rivière, Eric Rohmer’s The Green Ray) and several other offbeat fellow travelers. Writer-director Caroline Vignal's delightfully mischievous second feature film is an uproarious and poignant reminder of the virtues of independence as her protagonist stumbles toward self-revelation. Besides its Best Actress win, MY DONKEY, MY LOVER & I was nominated for eight César Awards including Best Film, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor.

"Fun and incredibly romantic. A jewel that touches the heart." — Marie Claire

"Beautiful. A portrait of a woman of rare density in French cinema. A film that is never afraid of its emotions and whose extreme sensitivity, rich in bursts of laughter as well as in fits of tears, does not at any time show sentimentality." — Premiere

"Stupendously entertaining. A sunny and spirit-lifting comedy boasting an endearing turn by Laure Calamy.” — The List

LOST ILLUSIONS Opens June 10 in NY

Posted by Aimee Morris on May 10, 2022 at 5:09pm

Music Box Films is pleased to announce the US theatrical release of LOST ILLUSIONS, Xavier Giannoli’s sumptuous adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s seminal 19th century Paris-set epic novel of ambition, lust, betrayal, and the birth of modern media. LOST ILLUSIONS will open on Friday, June 10 in New York (Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center) and Los Angeles (Laemmle's Royal, Pasadena’s Playhouse and Encino’s Town Center), followed by a national expansion.

Giannoli’s deft, au courant adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s sprawling novel of social-climbing and artistic compromise reminds us that the thorny entanglements of art, commerce, and media are centuries-old. This decadent, satirical romp that “plays with all the brio and jeopardy of a modern-day gangster movie” (Variety) is replete with both the opulence and grittiness of 19^th-century Paris. Fake news and “pay for play” are familiarly pervasive, though sexier and funnier than today’s version -- and not a little soul-pricking, since the culprits are lefty journalists and a doe-eyed, underdog poet-protagonist (Benjamin Voisin). Our hero’s journey begins with a quest for love and pure art, then ascends steeply to heights of notoriety, fortune, and debauchery, and then… What goes up must come down.

Adapting Balzac’s novel for the screen had been a life-long passion project for writer-director Xavier Giannoli, whose seven other features, regularly selected for the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals, include César Award winners In the Beginning,The Singer, and Marguerite, his tragi-comedy about the socialite soprano modeled after Florence Foster Jenkins.

"Refreshing…With its stellar performances, dramatic orchestral score and rich costume and set design, LOST ILLUSIONS is a worthwhile, sweeping narrative of love, lust and literary ambition.” - Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter

“Director Xavier Giannoli accomplishes one of French literature's trickier feats – adapting Balzac – finding uncanny resonances with our time.” - Peter Debruge, Variety

"Period-drama perfection. Acted with such terrific panache that not enjoying it is impossible.”- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

GAGARINE

Posted by Aimee Morris on March 24, 2022 at 5:25pm

Cohen Media Group is pleased to announce the US theatrical release of GAGARINE, written and directed by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh who blend gritty realism with magical fantasy in their highly acclaimed feature film debut. GAGARINE will open in theaters on Friday, April 1st in New York, Los Angeles and other top markets.

The Cité Gagarine housing project represented the hopes and dreams of a brighter future when it was built on the outskirts of Paris in the early 1960s. Fast forward nearly 60 years, and this landmark development – by then home to dozens of immigrant families – has been earmarked for demolition.

Teenager Youri (gifted newcomer Alseni Bathily) has lived his whole life in the tight-knit community of Gagarine, even being named after the famed Russian cosmonaut who inaugurated it in 1963. From the heights of his apartment, the science wiz dreams of becoming an astronaut. But when plans to demolish his home are leaked, Youri joins the resistance, embarking on a mission to save Gagarine, resolved to keep both the building and its community alive. Working tirelessly with best friend Houssam (Jamil McCraven) and Diana (Lyna Khoudri), a mechanically-minded Roma girl he has a crush on, Youri ingeniously transforms the housing project into his own “starship” before it disappears into space forever.

A beguiling tribute to the power of community, the persistence of memory, and the indefatigability of youth, GAGARINE was shot on the cusp of the actual demolition of Cité Gagarine in collaboration with its residents.

“A poignant, inspiring movie" - Laurel Graeber, The New York Times

“Urban fantasy Gagarine marks an audacious feature debut for writing-directing duo Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh [who] find poetry in the everyday, thanks to vividly unusual lighting, DOP Victor Seguin’s striking widescreen compositions, and magical touches.… this dreamlike romance can certainly be deemed a flagship for the continuation of imagination and ambition in French cinema.” -- Jonathan Romney, Screen

"A lovely and moving debut… Liatard and Trouilh manage the transitions between real and imaginary beautifully" --Jessica Kiang, Variety

2022 Winner Lumière Award for Best First Film

2022 New York International Children’s Film Festival

2021 Lincoln Center’s Rendez Vous with French Cinema

2020 Cannes International Film Festival

Directed by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh. Written by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh and Benjamin Charbit. Produced by Julie Billy and Carole Scotta. Cinematography by Victor Seguin. Edited by Daniel Darmon. Production design by Marion Burger. A Cohen Media Group release.

THE ROSEMAKER Opens April 1

Posted by Aimee Morris on March 9, 2022 at 3:08pm

Music Box Films is proud to announce the Friday, April 1st release of the affecting and charming French comedy THE ROSE MAKER, starring Catherine Frot (Marguerite) as Eve Vernet, a highly regarded rose creator trying to save her family business in unorthodox ways. THE ROSE MAKER will open in New York (Angelika Film Center) and Los Angeles (Laemmle Royal) and Pasadena (Laemmle Playhouse) followed by additional markets.

Gifted and eccentric horticulturalist Eve Vernet (Catherine Frot) honors her father’s legacy by continuing the family business, breeding exquisite roses that compete in showcases all over France. But her stubbornly artisanal approach struggles to compete with the mass market production from her corporate rivals. Facing imminent bankruptcy, Eve’s trusted assistant Vera (Olivia Côte,) makes a last-ditch effort to turn things around by secretly hiring three new employees from a prison rehabilitation program. Fred (Melan Omerta,) Samir (Fatsah Bouyahmed,) and Nadège (Marie Petiot,) are misunderstood outcasts with fresh ideas, strong work ethics, and absolutely no gardening skills. After resisting the newcomers' presence, Eve warms up to their idiosyncrasies, and, banding together, the team comes up with a zany and risky plan to try and save the business ...

Beloved French actress Catherine Frot, known for her subtly comic delivery, has received 10 César nominations throughout her career, winning the award for Best Actress for her performance in Xavier Giannoli’s Marguerite as socialite soprano Marguerite Dumont, modeled after Florence Foster Jenkins, and the César for Best Supporting Actress for Cédric Klapisch’s Un Air de Famille. Other notable films include Francis Veber’s hit comedy The Dinner Game, Martin Provost’s The Midwife, Christian Vincent’s Haute Cuisine, and Catherine Corsini’s The New Eve.

France starring Léa Seydoux Opens December 10

Posted by Aimee Morris on December 1, 2021 at 12:27pm

Kino Lorber is proud to announce the release of FRANCE, a satirical drama set in contemporary Paris, Léa Seydoux stars as France de Meurs, a seemingly unflappable superstar TV journalist whose career, homelife, and psychological stability are turned upside down after she carelessly drives into a young delivery man on a busy street. This unexpected eruption of reality triggers a series of self-reckonings as well as a strange romance that proves impossible to shake. As France attempts to slow down and retreat into a simpler, anonymous life, her fame continues to pursue her. Starting out as a tragicomic satire of the news media, writer-director Bruno Dumont’s provocative new film spirals out into something darker as it examines the difficulty of maintaining one’s sense of self in a corrosive culture.

FRANCE will open in New York (Film at Lincoln Center) and Los Angeles (Nuart) on Friday, December 10th followed by a national rollout.

One of the most singular and admired French writer-directors of the last two decades, Bruno Dumont’s award-winning body of work includes The Life of Jesus (winner of the Caméra d’Or Special Mention at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival), Humanity (winner of Cannes’ Grand Prix and Acting Awards for its two non-professional leads); the road movie Twentynine Palms, shot in Joshua Tree National Park desert (2003 Venice Film Festival); Dumont won his second Cannes Grand Prix for Flanders, followed by Hadewijch and Outside Satan, two films dealing with religion and mysticism. He cast Juliette Binoche in the biopic Camille Claudel 1915 and the comedy Slack Bay, named by Cahiers du Cinéma one of the best 10 films of 2016. Dumont’s highly popular comic miniseries Lil’ Quinquin were followed by the musical Jeannette: The Chilhood of Joan of Arc (2017 Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight) and Joan of Arc (winner of Special Mention at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard). FRANCE is his 11th film.

One of 2021’s Best Films - Cahiers du Cinéma

“Dumont delivers wild twists at a hectic pace, creating a kaleidoscopic frenzy of unreality and turning the daily life of a celebrity into a hallucinatory, media-saturated distortion.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Bruno Dumont offers Léa Seydoux her most resplendent role to date, that of a woman destroyed by the media complex in which she is trapped." – Le Monde

"Bruno Dumont examines a France that has been hijacked by social media and 24/7 news. A violent satire, shot through with lightning bolts of melodrama, interpreted by Lea Seydoux gone full kamikaze." – Premiere Magazine

ONLY THE ANIMALS Opens in NY on October 29 at the Quad Cinema

Posted by Aimee Morris on October 18, 2021 at 3:32pm

Cohen Media Group is proud to announce the Friday, October 29th release of the dark thriller ONLY THE ANIMALS, directed and written by French director Dominik Moll (With a Friend like Harry), starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Denis Ménochet and Laure Calamy in New York (Quad Cinema) and Los Angeles (Nuart), followed by additional cities.

Following the disappearance of the glamorous and secretive Evelyne Ducat (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) during a blizzard in the highlands of southern France, the lives of five people inextricably linked to Evelyne are brought together to devastating effect as the local police investigate the case.

Divided into five chapters, writer-director Dominik Moll’s murder mystery features a sophisticated multi-pronged narrative structure that keeps viewers on the edge. Switching viewpoints, it gradually reveals the secret connections between a lonely farmer, an unfaithful husband and wife, a lovelorn waitress and an African internet scam artist, exposing a world of greed, lust, betrayal, and loneliness, from isolated French mountain villages to the bustling streets of Abidjan.

After growing up in Germany and France, Dominik Moll studied film at City College in New York and the French National Film School IDHEC (now called FEMIS). A regular of the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice Film Festivals, he is best known for his dark hit comedy With a Friend Like Harry, winner of four Césars including Best Director, and the psychological thriller Lemming starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.

"Like ‘Fargo' remixed with ‘Babel' by way of Atom Egoyan... starts off as an intimate rural mystery and blossoms into a global affair where several strangers wind up connected in unexpected ways.” — Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

"Moll has given us this audacious, witty, and absorbing mystery thriller, a tale of adultery, and amour fou, with a gamey touch of the macabre.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

WHO YOU THINK I AM Starring Juliette Binoche Opens September 3

Posted by Aimee Morris on August 24, 2021 at 4:29pm

Cohen Media Group is proud to announce the September 3rd release of WHO YOU THINK I AM, writer-director Safy Nebbou’s romantic cyber-drama turned psychological thriller, based on the best-selling novel by Camille Laurens starring Oscar®-winning actress Juliette Binoche. WHO YOU THINK I AM is scheduled to open in theaters on Friday, September 3, 2021 in NY (Quad Cinema), LA (Landmark), Pasadena and Encino (Laemmle), Boston (Kendall) and Philadelphia (Ritz) followed by a national roll out.

Ghosted by her hunky twentysomething lover, Claire (Binoche - balancing cunning and vulnerability), a middle-aged professor and single mom, creates a fake Facebook profile to do a little undetected online snooping. But when her 24-year-old avatar “Clara” is friended by her ex’s equally attractive roommate (François Civil), superficial correspondence quickly escalates towards intense intimacy and uncontrollable obsession. Adapted from Camille Laurens’ best-selling novel—and co-scripted by Julie Peyr, a regular collaborator of Arnaud Desplechin—Who You Think I Am blends genres and bends reality to dizzying effect.

Writer-director Safy Nebbou films include The Giraffe’s Neck, Mark of an Angel, The Other Dumas and In the Forests of Siberia. His stage credits include the 2017 adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage with Laetitia Casta and Raphaël Personnaz. WHO YOU THINK I AM is his sixth feature film.

Acclaimed French-Lebanese jazz composer Ibrahim Maalouf wrote the score of WHO YOU THINK I AM. He won the César and Lumière Awards for Best Score for Nebbou’s In the Forests of Siberia and was nominated for a César in 2015 for Yves Saint Laurent. Maalouf has worked with such luminaries as Sting, Salif Keita, Amadou & Mariam, Vanessa Paradis, Juliette Greco, and Archie Shepp.

“With Binoche once more on beguiling form… For anyone who’s ever been catfished or ghosted on the dating trail - her evocation of exhilarated human connection and terrified self-sabotage is uncomfortably easy to empathize with” —Guy Lodge, Variety

"A compulsively watchable drama which taps into some genuinely intriguing themes.” Wendy Ide, Screen International

SIBYL directed by Justine Triet Opens September 11 in Virtual Cinemas

Posted by Aimee Morris on September 2, 2020 at 11:12am

Music Box Films is proud to announce that French director Justine Triet’s darkly comic psychodrama SIBYL, a selection of the Cannes, Toronto and New York Film Festivals, will be released in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, September 11 at Film at Lincoln Center and Laemmle's Virtual Cinemas, followed by other top markets throughout the US.

Sibyl (Virginie Efira), a jaded psychotherapist, abruptly decides to leave her practice to return to her first passion: writing. But her newest patient Margot (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a troubled up-and-coming actress, proves to be a source of inspiration that is far too tempting. Fascinated to the point of obsession, Sibyl becomes increasingly involved in Margot’s tumultuous life while negotiating her own demons.

In her second collaboration with rising star Virginie Efira, writer-director Justine Triet has created heroines of intense complexity, seamlessly intertwining past and present while maintaining a delicate balance between drama and acidic farce.

Justine Triet graduated from Paris’ École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Following documentary and narrative short films, she made her debut feature with La Bataille de Solférino (Age of Panic), which earned her a César nomination for Best First Film. Her second feature, In Bed with Victoria, starring Virginie Efira, opened the 2016 Cannes Critics’ Week and received five César nominations including Best Film and Best Actress. SIBYL is her third feature.

"Justine Triet's second highly pleasurable collaboration with actress Virginie Efira is a witty, slinky psychodrama… Seals the arrival of Efira … A first-class leading lady of consistently expanding range and élan — with the emotional honesty and deadpan pluck to pull off the more outrageous character turns." - Guy Lodge, Variety

For more information about Virtual Cinemas please visit:

https://www.musicboxfilms.com/film/sibyl/
https://www.filmlinc.org/films/sibyl/
https://www.laemmle.com/film/sibyl

THE WILD GOOSE LAKE-NY Opening March 6 at Film Forum

Posted by Aimee Morris on February 18, 2020 at 2:52pm

Film Movement is proud to announce the release of THE WILD GOOSE LAKE, Chinese director Diao Yinan’s electrifying, gritty Chinese noir thriller opening on Friday, March 6th, 2020 at New York’s Film Forum followed by a national roll out.

Set in the nooks and crannies of densely populated Wuhan in central China, the film’s sensibility manages to be both elegant and down-and-dirty. It follows the desperate attempts of small-time mob boss Zhou Zenong (the charismatic Hu Ge) to stay alive after he mistakenly kills a cop and a dead-or-alive reward is put on his head. Director Diao (UNIFORM; NIGHT TRAIN; BLACK COAL, THIN ICE) proves his action bona fides in a series of stylized set pieces and violent shocks as a romance forms between Zhou and a mysterious young woman (Gwei Lun-mei) who’s out to either help or betray him. Diao deftly keeps multiple characters and chronologies spinning, while examining social change in contemporary China. Chaotic and nocturnal, THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is punctuated by long pursuits and stunningly choreographed gang fights, in a filmic geometry of arresting beauty and originality.

Diao Yinan was born in Xi'an, China, and studied dramatic literature at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. He has directed the features Uniform, Night Train, and Black Coal, Thin Ice. THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is a box office sensation in China, having grossed $23 million in its first week of release. French Academy Award winning producer Alexandre Mallet-Guy also served as co-producer on the film.

"Diao Yinan delivers a definitive Chinese crime noir, in which the ravishing style and inventive staging form the substance. Staged and executed with...slick, dark dazzle. Reteaming with cinematographer Dong Jinsong, Diao shows an extraordinarily elastic mastery of form. THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is like an organic feature of the Chinese cinematic landscape, as though it pooled onto the screen in all its oily, murky glory, having welled up from deep inside the ground. Suddenly, China feels like the noirest place on Earth.” — Jessica Kiang, Variety

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