Le Pacte to launch Odoul’s The Rest of the World at Paris Rendez-vous

Paris-based Le Pacte has taken on sales of Damien Odoul’s The Rest of the World (Le Reste du Monde) ahead of the Rendez-vous of French Cinema in Paris running January 11 to 16.

“We have a long-standing relationship with Damien Odoul… we’ll be showing the film to buyers for the first time at the Rendez-vous,” says Le Pacte’s head of sales Camille Neel.

The picture revolves around the discovery of along-buried family secret by three sisters, each grappling with their own personal dramas.

Odoul’s eighth film after pictures including L’Histoire de Richard O. and Deep Breath, The Rest of the World will world premiere in the Spectrum selection of the International Film Festival Rotterdam and is also destined for the Hong Kong International Festival.

The company will also screen Michale Boganim’s Chernobyl inspired drama Land of Oblivion and John Shank’s tale of a young man trying to keep the family farm alive Last Winter.

Le Pacte has also picked up world sales on Guillaume Nicloux’s adaptation of 18th century writer and philosopher Denis Diderot’s classic novel The Nun.

Rising Belgian actress Pauline Etienne plays Suzanne, a young girl forced into a convent against her will, opposite Isabelle Huppert as a kindly mother superior and Louise Bourgoin as a sadistic sister who torments the novice.

French Les Films du Worso is lead producer on the Franco-Belgian-German co-production, which is due to start shooting at the end of January.

Nicloux’s previous works include The Key (La Clef), starring Guillaume Canet as a young man paying for the crimes of his father.

Other titles on Le Pacte’s Rendez-vous line-up include the feature-length animations Moon Man and Day of the Crows.

Neel has high hopes for Stephan Schesch’s Moon Man, an adaptation of the best-selling 1966 children’s classic by French illustrator Tomi Ungerer.

“We think it would work at one of the big festivals… we’ve already got material to show at the Rendez-vous and plan to show first footage at Berlin,” says Neel of the production scheduled for completion in time for Cannes.

More than 40 sales companies are set to launch their French film line-ups for 2012 at Unifrance’s annual Paris Rendez-vous. Some 450 sales and exhibition professionals are expected to attend.