Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2017: # 76. Jacques Doillon’s Rodin

Rodin

Director: Jacques Doillon
Writer: Jacques Doillon

Seasoned French auteur Jacques Doillon has been making films since the early 1970s and has competed on most of the world’s most noted festival platforms (his daughter Lou Doillon has followed in his directing footsteps). For his 28th feature, Rodin, Doillon casts celebrated French actor Vincent Lindon (who recently won a Cesar and Best Actor at Cannes 2015 for The Measure of a Man) as the famed sculptor Auguste Rodin, charting his passionate relationship with student cum colleague Camille Claudel (portrayed by Izia Higelin of Catherine Corsini’s Summertime, 2015). This is hardly the first time this famed relationship has been explored, most memorably in the 1988 film Camille Claudel starring Isabelle Adjani (in an Oscar nominated performance) opposite Gerard Depardieu’s Rodin. Recently, Bruno Dumont explored Claudel’s later life in a sanatorium with an excellent performance from Juliette Binoche in Camille Claudel, 1915. Doillon’s film will favor Rodin’s perspective, obviously, so it will be an interesting companion piece to what’s come before. Needless to say, everyone has big shoes to fill.

Cast: Vincent Lindon, Izia Higelin, Severine Caneele

Production Co./Producer(s): Les Films du Lendemain (Kristina Larsen), Wild Bunch, France 3 Cinema, Artemis Productions.

U.S. Distributor: Rights available.

Release Date: Doillon competed in Cannes twice (1979 and 1984), but has premiered most of his filmography since then in Berlin’s competition (four times, last in 1998) and Venice (also four times, last seen in 2003). More recently, 2012’s A Child of Yours went to Rome while 2013’s Love Battles bowed in the Panorama at Berlin. With the high profile Rodin, Cannes shouldn’t be ruled out, but the project, currently in post, could also be presented in Venice.

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