CANNES: The French collection

Marie Masmonteil and Denis Carot, Elzévir Films

In Cannes with…
Un Certain Regard opener Party Girl and Directors’ Fortnight selection Gett, The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem.

History
Marie Masmonteil, who is also president of France’s Independent Producers Syndicate (SPI), and Denis Carot have been collaborating for 20 years. “We’re on our 20th feature. Projects come to us through our network but sometimes out of chance meetings. I met Radu Mihaileanu during a Unifrance trip to Acapulco,” says Masmonteil of the Romanian director, whose Live And Become and The Source Elzévir produced.

Masmonteil came across Party Girl co-director Claire Burger while sitting in on an exam at La Fémis film school. “She had such presence, she stuck in my mind,” she says.

Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz’s drama Gett was brought in by Sandrine Brauer, who recently joined the company’s Elzévir & Co banner. They found German co-producer Michael Eckelt of Riva Film during Unifrance’s Franco-German co-production meeting in 2012. “He’d done films with Eran Riklis and we thought he was good fit,” says Carot.

Upcoming productions
In the pipeline are Jean-Jacques Zilbermann’s Auschwitz-Les-Bains (working title) based on his mother’s holidays with former death-camp inmates; Camille Fontaine’s thriller Par Accident, starring Emilie Dequenne and Hafsia Herzi; Gérard Pautonnier’s Grand Froid about two hearse drivers who discover their charge is still alive; and Philippe Aractingi’s The Eagle And The Butterfly.

The future of French cinema?
“A number of French commercial films flopped last year, which has made distributors hesitant about boarding local films,” says Masmonteil. The other big challenge, she says, is the introduction of a new labour deal for crew members that has bumped up production costs.

“Some 50% fewer films have been produced since January. We wouldn’t have made Party Girl under the new convention. There will be less than 200 French films made this year, against some 250 in 2013,” predicts Masmonteil, adding the new terms would have added $415,000 (€300,000) to Party Girl’s $1.8m (€1.3m) budget. “The convention risks destroying an already fragile equilibrium,” adds Carot.

Denis Freyd, Archipel 35

In Cannes with…
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Palme d’Or contender Two Days, One Night (Deux Jours, Une Nuit) and Pascale Ferran’s Bird People in Un Certain Regard.

History
Denis Freyd, co-producer on the Dardennes’ most recent five films, started out at the National Audiovisual Institute (INA), producing experimental films by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and Raul Ruiz.

“That’s where I first came across the Dardennes,” says Freyd. “They were working for [French film-maker] Armand Gatti — Luc as assistant director and Jean-Pierre as assistant cameraman.”

It was after a chance meeting some two decades later at a screening of Archipel 35’s first feature Saint-Cyr in Brussels in 2000, that Freyd started producing for the brothers. “They had just won the Palme d’Or for Rosetta and were preparing The Son,” he recalls.

Today, he works closely with Belgian producer Delphine Tomson at the brothers’ Les Films du Fleuve. “I handle French finance and throughout the process I’m the interlocutor on the script, the set, the costumes, I watch the rushes, follow the edit — there’s a real artistic complicity and friendship.”

Freyd, who produces one to two projects a year, met Ferran through Club des 13, a film industry think-tank she set up alongside Jacques Audiard and the late Claude Miller. “She had an idea for a film that we started developing together some four, five years ago,” he says.

Upcoming productions
Projects include an ambitious $55.3m (€40m), two-part project by Pierre Schoeller about the French Revolution, that The Minister director is writing; double César-winning actress Sara Forestier’s directorial debut M, starring Adele Exarchopoulos as a stuttering introvert who falls for a risk-taking daredevil; and Camille de Casabianca’s La Vie En Bleu about a female police officer whose new relationship makes her question the law.

The future of French cinema?
There are lots of elements in play at the moment, says Freyd. “France’s system of film financing is threatened because the mainstream broadcasters are under pressure,” he says, adding that it also remains to be seen how Canal Plus, a major financier of French cinema, will weather competition from outside players such as the Al Jazeera-backed sports channel BeIN and Netflix.

It is too early, however, to declare that the French are abandoning cinema. “Cinema audiences are up again after last year’s disastrous results,” says Freyd. “There is still a strong interest and curiosity in cinema.”

Bénédicte Couvreur, Hold-Up Films

In Cannes with…
Directors’ Fortnight opener Girlhood (Bande De Filles), directed by Céline Sciamma, about an urban girl gang. It is the film-maker’s latest work after Tomboy.

History
Bénédicte Couvreur first met Sciamma on her 2007 film Water Lilies, while working with Jérome Dopffer at Les Productions Balthazar.

“We were putting together these text-book auteur productions using the CNC’s advance against receipts, tax incentives, regional funds and broadcasters,” says Couvreur, who cut her teeth on Delphine Gleize’s Carnage (2002).

“I decided I wanted to work within a micro-structure where I could be at the heart of every project,” she says. “I love to accompany talent, working closely with the film-makers on the script. I don’t get a lot of pleasure out of the financing side.”

In 2008, Couvreur took over documentary boutique Hold-Up Films where, parallel to working at Balthazar, she had been producing non-fiction works such as Olivier Meyrou’s Beyond Hatred (Au-Dela De La Haine), about parents dealing with the murder of their gay son.

Sciamma’s Tomboy, which sold to 35 territories, was Couvreur’s first feature under the Hold-Up banner. “Girlhood is harder as a film but it’s a true auteur film. Céline and I are always looking at how we can do things differently,” she says.

Upcoming productions
The slate includes Sylvie Verheyde’s Dans Tes Yeux based on an idea by actress Mylene Jampanoi (Verheyde’s last film Confession Of A Child Of The Century, starring Pete Doherty, premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2012), Dorothée Sebbagh’s Grosse Patate about a chubby girl who wants to become a stand-up comic (Sebbagh has just finished shooting Divorce A La Francaise for UGC) and Meyrou’s debut fiction, the subject of which is under wraps.

The future of French cinema?
“The new collective convention is proving to be disastrous… France was already expensive as a place to shoot,” says Couvreur. She adds, however: “It’s not politically correct, but the economic reality might also prompt a bit of spring-cleaning and make producers think more carefully about the projects they’re taking on.”

Isabelle Madelaine, Dharamsala

In Cannes with…
Cyprien Vial’s Bébé Tigre, about an Indian minor in the care of the French state, will be sold in the market by Films Distribution; the film is now destined for a summer festival, along with Dharamsala’s other recent production L’Oranais by Lyes Salem.

History
Isabelle Madelaine set up Dharamsala in 2001, focusing on short films, working with half a dozen young directors who are now embarking on their first and second features, including Salem, Alice Winocour and duo Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq and Claire Burger, co-directors of Un Certain Regard opener Party Girl.

“The shorts have been pretty successful, picking up a number of prizes, including three Césars and we’ve slowly segued into features,” says Madelaine. Features to date include Salem’s Mascarades, Gérald Hustache-Mathieu’s Poupoupidou and Winocour’s Augustine, which premiered as a special screening in Critics’ Week in 2012.

Upcoming productions
On the way are Winocour’s psychological thriller La Nuit S’En Va, about a former special-forces officer hired to protect the family of a Middle East businessman; Réparer Les Vivants, the debut feature from actor Guillaume Gouix, known for his role as Serge in Haut et Court’s The Returned (Les Revenants); and Hustache-Mathieu’s offbeat superhero project Catman.

The future of French cinema?
Madelaine is concerned about the impact of the new labour accord for crew. “I’ve yet to make a film under the accord. Bébé Tigre wrapped just before it came into force but it looks complicated. There’s less money but costs have been pushed up,” she says.

Beyond this, pressure on France’s media chronology laws that are the basis for French film finance is also a worry.