Annual Top Films Lists

Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2020: #132. Filles de joie – Frédéric Fonteyne

Published on December 30, 2019

Filles de joie

French director Frédéric Fonteyne breaks an eight-year hiatus with his fifth feature Filles de joie aka Working Girls (initially titled The Border) in 2020, produced by Jacques-Henri and Olivier Bronckart, Yael Fogiel and Laetitia Gonzalez. Sara Forestier, Noemie Lvovsky and Annabelle Legronne headline the film. Previously, Fonteyne competed in Venice with his 1999 sophomore film An Affair of Love (aka A Pornographic Affair) and returned to Venice in the Horizons sidebar with 2004’s Gille’s Wife (which won the C.I.C.A.E. Award in the sidebar) and 2012’s Tango Libre (which won a Special Jury Prize in the sidebar).

Gist: Co-written by his Tango libre scribe Anne Paulicevich, is about three women who, everyday cross the border from France to Belgium, where they carry out their secret professions as sex workers. At the end of one particularly hot summer, all three women will share a secret forever binding them.

Release Date/Prediction: Filles de joie is set for a March 2020 theatrical release in France and will receive its festival premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival in the VOICES section.

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.