Martin Provost Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe

Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #187. Martin Provost’s Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe

Published on January 5, 2023

Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe

A French filmmaker who offers comfort food portraits, for his eighth outing Martin Provost enlisted the likes of Vincent Macaigne, Cécile de France, Stacy Martin, Anouk Grinberg, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet and André Marcon for what is a historical romance biopic. Production on Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe began in August of last year and saw Provost re-team with his How to Be a Good Wife (2020) cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman. François Kraus and Denis Pineau-Valencienne produced the project. Provost is best known for 2008’s Seraphine — Best Film at the 2009 César Awards (French Oscars).

Gist: This revolves around Pierre Bonnard who wouldn’t be the well-known painter he is today if it weren’t for the enigmatic Marthe who features in more than a third of his works. Maria Boursin, alias Marthe de Méligny, was posing as a ruined Italian aristocrat on the day they fell madly in love with one another. Little did she know that she would soon become the mainstay of a gigantic body of work, which is now considered to be one of the most significant from the beginning of the 20th century.

Release Date/Prediction: This could choose to go the non-festival route or drop at a fest like Locarno or Toronto.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).