Catherine Deneuve hits the road with Elle Driver

Elle Driver has taken on sales of Emmanuelle Bercot’s Elle s’en va starring Catherine Deneuve as a sexy, sixty-something grandmother who sets off on an impromptu road trip.

It is one of five new projects titles Elle Driver plan to launch at Cannes alongside selling Directors’ Fortnight selection Gangs of Wasseypur and Critics’ Week title Peddlers and premiering promos for Stéphanie Murat’s comedy Max and Juan Carlos Medina’s thriller Painless.

Elle s’en va is the third feature for actress and director Bercot, who recently co-wrote and appeared in Maiwenn’s gritty police drama Polisse and also directed one of the sketches in Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche’s The Players.

It has yet to be given an English title but Elle s’en va translates roughly as “she’s off.”

Deneuve plays sassy grandmother Cathy who takes to the road after being betrayed by her lover and learning her business is on the verge of bankruptcy on the same day.

During a weeklong odyssey across France, she spends time with a grandson she hardly knows and reconnects with her past as former Miss Brittany through a reunion for former beauty queens.

A script is available for the picture, produced by Olivier Delbosc and Marc Missonnier of Fidelité Films and shooting from May in various locations across France.

Elle Driver will also kick off sales on May in the Summer, the second feature from Cherien Dabis, whose Amreeka premiered at Sundance in 2009 and also screened in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.

The dramatic comedy revolves around thirty-something Palestinian American May who travels to the Jordanian capital of Amman to spend time with her family ahead of getting married. Traditional values and western mores clash against the backdrop of a modernising Jordanian middle-class. Hiam Abbass is on the cast and other members are due to be confirmed shortly.

Elle Driver will also launch sales on Mademoiselle C. an upbeat, fly-on-the-wall documentary following the flamboyant former Vogue Paris editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld’s as she works on the launch of her new fashion magazine CR. It is described by the company as “a lot of fun”.

Director Fabien Constant has been granted unprecedented access to Roitfeld’s private and professional life. Confirmed interviews include Tom Ford, Karl Lagerfeld and Donatella Versace and a host of other stars and fashion world personalities are expected to crop up too.

Shooting has started and will carry on right up until the real-life of launch of CR this September.

Films in post-production include Italian Giorgio Diritti’s working titled picture Vanity, starring Jasmine Trinca as a young woman whose vision of her life crumbles during a visit trip to the Amazon. Diritti’s last film The Man Who Will Come won the best film at Italy’s Donatello awards in 2010.

The company will also unveil first images of Amir Galván and Vanessa Arreola’s La Quarta Compania set and shot in Mexico’s notoriously violent Santa Martha jail. It follows a young inmate who joins the jail’s legendary American Football squad The Dogs only to find himself at the heart of a ruthless criminal organisation fronted by the team.

First promo reels are also available for French director Stéphanie Murat’s comedy drama Max, starring Joey Starr as a single father whose young daughter befriends a prostitute and invites her back home for Christmas to take care of her father.

A promo is also available for Spanish Medina’s thriller Painless about a brain surgeon who uncovers the forgotten case of a group of children insensitive to pain, placed in sanatorium in the Pyrenees during the Spanish Civil War and horrifically re-educated to understand the meaning of pain.

The company will also market screen completed titles Farewell My Queen, Bachelorette, 28 Hotel Rooms, Black Rock and A.C.A.B. (All Cops are Bastards).