Paris and LA-based international distribution company Other Angle has boarded Victoria Bedos’ coming-of-age identity comedy-drama Dressed To Impress.
Bedos is the creator and co-writer of La Famille Bélier, the original French film adapted to Sian Heder’s Oscar-winning Coda that sold more than 7.45 million tickets during its 2014 run in France.
Dressed To Impress (French title: La Plus Belle Pour Aller Danser) is produced by Hélène Cases of France’s Lionceau Films and Universal will release the film in France on April 26th. Other Angle will kick off sales for the title at EFM.
The teenage identity tale stars newcomer Brune Moulin in the leading role alongside veteran local actors Philippe Katerine (Asterix & Obelisk: The Middle Kingdom, A Happy Man), Pierre Richard (Jeanne Du Barry, Asterix & Obelisk: The Middle Kingdom).
Dressed To Impress follows a 14-year-old girl named Marie-Luce who is being bullied by her classmates at school and raised by her father in a retirement home where he is the director. When her father forbids her from going to a school party, her best friend (who happens to be an 80-year-old retiree) convinces her to crash the fete dressed as a man where everyone mistakes her for a boy. Enjoying the attention, the girl continues the ruse as Leo, becomes instantly popular and falls in love with a boy unaware of her true identity. Her switch also complicates her relationship with her father at home.
Other Angle co-founder Olivier Albou called the film “touching, intelligent and surprising.” He added: “The film isn’t just about a girl dressing as a boy – it’s about someone changing identity unintentionally, it’s mostly about wanting to be loved. It is a story filled with sincerity and originality.”
Bedos told Screen the film is about “self-acceptance through the eyes of a father, others and a love interest.”
The film is inspired from Bedos’ own childhood. “I had a similar experience to Marie-Luce as a teenager. I didn’t feel good in my own skin so I wanted to blend this with how young girls are seen by their fathers and their peers and society,” she explained, adding: “It’s also the story of a teenager falling in love for the first time and about finding freedom through her male alter-ego.”
Bedos said the film was a natural next step following La Famille Bélier. “La Famille Bélier was a metaphor for a child who couldn’t be heard by her parents and Dressed To Impress is about a girl who feels she isn’t seen.”
Other Angle also has the remake rights to the film that Albou calls “a universal story that resonates in every country,” namely “a student being bullied at school who switches identity to change the perception others have of them.”
Focus typically handles international sales for Universal films, but the studio opted for a French seller for the local language title so Other Angle will handle global sales for the just-boarded film.
Other Angle heads to EFM with a buzzy slate including Warner Bros. French language titles such as Jennifer Devoldère’s The Midwife starring Karin Viard and Melvin Boomer and Melissa Drigeard’s ensemble comedy Hawaii starring Berenice Bejo and a starry French cast. Also on Other Angle’s Berlin slate are Isabelle Mergault’s Hands of Gold with Lambert Wilson, Josiane Balasko and Sylvie Testud, Mélanie Auffret’s elementary school-set Sweet Little Things, Stéphane Cazes’ mountain top-set comedy The Snow Must Go On and Benjamin Leher’s cop drama 38.5 Police Fever.
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