20/11/2019 - Upcoming films by Abderrahmane Sissako, Aurélia Georges and Bruno Podalydès will likewise be co-produced by the film subsidiary of the French-German TV channel

The fourth 2019 selection committee of Arte France Cinéma (steered by Olivier Père) has decided to co-produce and pre-purchase four projects. Standing tall amongst these is The Worst Person in the World [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joachim Trier
film profile] which will be Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s 5th feature film (off the back of Reprise [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joachim Trier
interview: Karin Julsrud
film profile], Oslo, August 31st [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joachim Trier
film profile], Louder than Bombs [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joachim Trier
film profile] and Thelma [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eili Harboe
interview: Joachim Trier
film profile]) and which is set to be shot between April and July 2020, with production also in the hands of French group MK Productions, Norwegian firm Oslo Pictures, Denmark’s Snowglobe and Swedish outfit B-Reel Films.

Starring Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, the film will be set in present-day Oslo. As for the plot, it revolves around Julie, who’s a young and resourceful woman, but still trying to find her way at 30 years of age. Although she’s happy with Aksel, a successful draughtsman who’s both loving and protective, she refuses to give him the child he so desires. When Julie leaves him for Eivind, she hopes, yet again, to be able to start a new life…

Arte France Cinéma has also plumped for La Colline parfumée by Abderrahmane Sissako (who competed in Cannes with his last opus, Timbuktu [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), which will be produced by French groups Cinéfrance Studios and Archipel 35 in league with Mauritian outfit Dune Vision. The story centres around Joice, a young, thirty-something woman from the African continent who says “No” on the day of her marriage. She subsequently leaves her homeland and builds a new life for herself in China’s “Chocolate City”, the African district of Guangzhou, where she works in a shop selling tea… Filming will kick off in April 2020, unfolding between China and Africa.

Likewise included within the Arte France Cinéma selection is Secret Name [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aurélia Georges
film profile] by Aurélia Georges (La fille et le fleuve [+see also:
trailer
film profile], L’homme qui marche [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), a 31 Juin Films production which will be shot in spring-summer 2020, starring Anaïs Demoustier, Sabine Azéma and Laetitia Dosch. This story of deception and survival, which tackles the themes of lies and social hypocrisy from a suspense-filled, romantic angle, will have at its centre Nélie, who escapes a miserable existence by becoming an auxiliary nurse on the Front in 1914. One day, she assumes the identity of Rose, a young woman from a well-to-do family who dies before her very eyes. Nélie presents herself at the home of a very rich woman, Eléonore de Lengwil - whose reader she will soon become - in the place of the deceased…

And finally, Arte France Cinéma will also be lending its support to French Tech [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the new comedy (steered by Why Not Productions) coming courtesy of Bruno Podalydès, which will focus its gaze on characters left behind by the modern world and by recent technological and societal upheavals. The director himself will star in the film, alongside Sandrine Kiberlain and his brother Denis Podalydès, to tell the tale of Alexandre, who’s unemployed and barred from holding a bank account. While his wife Albane is deployed in a nuclear submarine, he must care for their two young children alone. Alexandre has two months to find work and to prove that he really is capable of looking after the latter…

For the record, Arte France Cinéma is also supporting upcoming films by Mia Hansen-Løve, Philippe Garrel, Leos Carax, Mathieu Amalric, Miguel Gomes, Nadav Lapid, Lisandro Alonso, Jonas Carpignano, Kirill Serebrennikov, Alain Guiraudie, Lav Diaz, Julia Ducournau, Thierry de Peretti, Arthur Harari, Leyla Bouzid, Vincent Le Port, Just Philippot, Thomas Balmès, Hafsia Herzi, Chloé Mazlo, Dinara Droukarova, Chen Bo Yilin, Dror Moreh and the duo Rana Kazkaz - Anas Khalaf, as well as animated films coming courtesy of Florence Miailhe and Pierre Földes.

(Translated from French)