Arte French Cinéma has announced it is backing French director Quentin Dupieux’s upcoming black comedy Le Daim, starring Jean Dujardin as a man who becomes obsessed with owning the designer deerskin jacket of his dreams.
It is an obsession that will lead him to turn his back on his humdrum life in the suburbs, blow his life savings and even turn him to crime.
It will be Dupieux’s seventh feature after off-beat works Steak and Rubber. Mathieu and Thomas Verhaeghe at Paris-based Atelier de Production are producing.
The pair also recently produced the director’s upcoming 1970s police detective story parody Keep An Eye Out, starring Benoit Poelvoorde and Gregoire Ludig.
The production was among four upcoming features receiving Arte support in its latest cinema funding round decided on Nov 23.
The Franco-German broadcaster is also backing Algerian-French director Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s upcoming sixth feature Terminal Sud.
Set against the backdrop of the Algerian civil war in the 1990s, Ramzy Bédiah stars as a medic torn between his love for his partner (played by Leïla Bekhti) who is exiled in France and a sense of duty.
It is produced by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s Sarrazink Production and Paris-based Les Films du Lendemain.
Arte is also boarding two international co-productions, Brazilian filmmaking duo Fellipe Barbosa and Clara Linhart’s Domingo and Tunisian director Mohamed Ben Attia’s Mon cher enfant.
Arte describes Domingo as a choral film following an upper middle class family over the course of one historic day, Jan 1, 2003, the day Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was inaugurated as Brazil’s new left-wing president heralding a era of social change.
The ensemble cast features Ittala Nandi, Ismael Caneppele, Camila Morgado, Augusto Madeira, Martha Nowill and Michael Wahrmann.
Barbosa’s last film Gabriel And The Mountain played in Cannes’s Critics’ Week this year.
Mon cher enfant, which has just finished shooting in Tunisia, is a topical, contemporary tale revolving around an aspirational middle class couple whose ambitions for their only son are dashed when he abandons the family home to travel to Syria.
It is Ben Attia’s second feature after his award-winning debut Hedi, which won Best First Feature as well as the Silver Bear for Best Actor for lead actor Majd Mastoura at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016.
It is produced by Paris-based Nadim Cheikhrouha’s Tanit Films, Dora Bouchoucha’s Tunis-based Nomadis Images and Belgian directorial duo Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Les Films du Fleuve.
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