Newen Connect has boarded Pascal Elbé’s Lucky Star, one of four new comedies the company will launch at Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris later this month.
Actor/filmmaker Elbé’s fourth feature as a director is set in 1940 France and stars Benoit Poelvoorde as an army deserter who hatches a plan to escape Nazi punishment and protect his wife and son by pretending his family is Jewish, but ends up being swept into the Resistance.
Elbé also stars in the film with Audrey Lamy, Zabou Breitman and Hugo Becker. It is produced by Yze’s Yann Zanou and ADNP/QUAD’s Nicolas Adassovsky. Now in post-production, UGC Distribution will release Lucky Star in France later in 2025.
The TF1-owned film and TV distribution arm of French media group Newen Studios also heads to the Rendez-Vous with Bald Is The New Black. It centres on a 30-year-old man whose girlfriend dumps him when he is diagnosed with premature baldness, propelling him on a mission to fight his hairless fate with shock treatments and failed hacks.
The film – whose French title Comme Un Oeuf means “like an egg” – stars Kev Adams, Michael Youn and Rayane Bensetti, and is produced by Curiosa Films and Estello Films. UGC has scheduled a July 16 release date in France.
The other new comedy titles on Newen Connect’s Rendez-Vous slate are Frédéric Quiring’s A Nun In The City (Doux Jesus) and Johann Dionnet’s romantic comedy Rodrigue In Love (Avignon).
A Nun In The City follows a nun who sneaks out of the convent where she has spent the last 20 years to track down her teenage sweetheart who has been wrongly accused of murder. Times have changed and she finds herself on a wild road trip as her religious devotion is put to the test.
Marilou Berry and Isabelle Nanty star in the film which is produced by Les Films du 24.
Rodrigue In Love stars Baptiste Lecaplain, Elisa Erka and Alison Wheeler and is about a struggling actor who pretends to be the lead in an Avignon Theatre Festival production to win over an actress, leading to a tangled web of deceit and absurd improvisations.
Produced by Nolita Cinema and currently in post, Warner Bros France and TF1 Studio will release Rodrigue In Love later in 2025.
Newen Connect will also host market screenings at the Rendez-Vous for Julie Manoukian’s crime comedy The Green Gang (Hauts Les Mains) and Elsa Bennett’s and Hippolyte Dard’s comedy drama Better Days (Des Jours Meilleurs).
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