Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2013: #19. Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is a Hot Color

Le bleu est une couleur chaude (Blue Is a Hot Color)

Director/Writer/: Abdellatif Kechiche
Producer(s): Kechiche’s Quat’sous Films & Wild Bunch
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Jeremie Laheurte, Catherine Salée, Aurélien Recoing, Sandor Funtek

Almost Kubrick-like with how demanding he is of each scene, Abdellatif Kechiche has been developing his signature style (long takes that magnify everything that surrounds the human condition) focusing on the fringe characters of society since his debut 2000’s La Faute à Voltaire and expertly with 2007’s The Secret of the Grain. His fifth feature film is an adaptation from a graphic novel – his second adaptation.

Gist: This centers on Jocelyne (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who is 15 years old and is certain of two things: she is a girl, and girls go out with boys. On the day in which she spots Emma’s (Léa Seydoux) blue hair on the Grand Place, she senses that her life is about to change. Facing these teenage troubles on her own, she transforms the way she looks at herself and the way that others see her. Through her love story with Emma, she gains fulfillment as a woman, and as an adult. But Jocelyne is unable to make peace, neither with her parents, nor with a world full of absurd moralities, nor with herself…

Release Date: Though Kechiche favors the Venice Film Festival, I’m sure Cannes would be very much interested in including this into their Main Competition line-up.