Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2015: #7. Abdellatif Kechiche’s La blessure

La blessure

Director: Abdellatif Kechiche // Writer: Abdellatif Kechiche, Francois Begaudeau

Few auteurs have reached the heights of emotional realism in narrative cinema as has Tunisian born director Abdellatif Kechiche. Starting out as an actor (his last stint in front of the camera was in Jeff Stanzler’s 2005 American indie Sorry, Haters with Robin Wright), Kechiche’s 2000 debut, Poetical Refugee premiered in Venice and starred a host of faces we’ve seen frequently, including Sami Bouajila, Elodie Bouchez, and Aure Atika. His coming titles would prove Kechiche’s preference for non-professional and/or character actors, including the excellent 2005 title Games of Love and Chance, which won Kechiche the Cesar for Best Film, Screenplay, and Director, and would introduce us to actress Sara Forestier. He’d win Best Film, Director, and Screenplay again at the Cesars in 2007, along with several awards in Venice, including the Special Jury Prize for The Secret of the Grain, a beautiful, epically mounted film about a family’s struggle to open a couscous restaurant (which also became the platform for rising star Hafsia Herzi). His next film, 2010’s Black Venus, a biography of Saartjes Baartman, a slave from South Africa forced into the carnival trade before being used by French anatomists as evidence of the missing link, was less enthusiastically received and didn’t receive US distribution. But it would be his next work, an adaptation of a graphic novel by Julie Maroh, 2013’s Blue is the Warmest Color, which would really solidify his reputation and renown, taking home the Palm D’or at Cannes before nearly a year long back and forth controversy between Kechiche and stars Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos. After much deliberation, Kechiche chose La blessure (The Real Wound) as his next project, an adaptation of the novel by Francois Begaudeau (writer and star of Laurent Cantet’s 2008 film The Class). Starring Gerard Depardieu (see still of Welcome to New York), the film revolves around a teenager attempting to lose their virginity while on holiday in Tunisia.

Cast: Gerard Depardieu

Production Co.: Orange Studio

U.S. Distributor: Rights available.

Release Date: With filming taking place late last summer, Kechiche should see his second crack at the Palme in 2015.

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