Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2016: #48. Tran Anh Hung’s Eternité

Eternité

Director: Tran Anh Hung
Writer: Tran Anh Hung

Vietnamese auteur Tran Anh Hung had a smoldering early career, snagging the Camera d’Or at Cannes for his 1993 debut Scent of the Green Papaya and nabbing the Golden Lion in Venice for his 1995 sophomore film, Cyclo. A five year break brought The Vertical Ray of the Sun in 2000, and then nine years later Hung premiered his ill received English language debut, I Come With the Rain, which starred Josh Hartnett. An adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s celebrated novel Norwegian Wood was better received, though received a delayed and limited theatrical run in the US. He’s back with an exciting new project, his French language debut Eternité (Eternity), set to star three French beauties, Melanie Laurent, Beatrice Bejo, and Audrey Tautou, based on Alice Ferney’s celebrated novel which concerns a story from the late 19th century to the end of the 20th century of three generations of women and their children, all born into a Catholic bourgeois family, as the women evolve from girls to mothers then widows, their husbands often killed by wars. We had initially hoped to see the title revealed in 2015, but the film is currently in post-production.

Cast: Melanie Laurent, Berenice Bejo, Audrey Tautou, Jeremie Renier, Pierre Deladonchamps

Production Co./Producers: Nord-Ouest’s Christophe Rossignon (Les combattants), Artemis, Samsa Film

U.S. Distributor: U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic). Pathe (International).

Release Date: Though Venice is still a possibility, the significant French presence might have distributor Pathe gunning for a placement at Cannes.