Larger Ecosystems: Valérie Donzelli Leads Virginie Efira and Melvil Poupaud to “L’amour et les forêts”

A lawyer and client pairing in Justine Triet’s In Bed with Victoria, Virginie Efira and Melvil Poupaud will team up as an admirer and author in Valérie Donzelli‘s sixth feature film. L’amour et les forêts is set to go into production this month in and around Paris. Rectangle Productions’ Edouard Weil, the production company behind most of Donzelli’s works, Gaspar Noé’s recent output and most recently the critically acclaimed Happening will produce. An adaption of Éric Reinhardt’s 2014 novel, in a nutshell this tells the story of the power of text and focuses on one woman’s survival the degradation at the hand’s of her former husband, and her eventual emancipation.

Donzelli’s directorial debut Queen of Hearts (2009) was a Locarno selection and her 2011 sophomore film Declaration of War was selected for the Critics’ Week in Cannes. 2012’s Hand in Hand went to the Rome Film Festival, while her 2015 title Marguerite and Julien competed for the Palme d’Or in Cannes. 2019’s Notre Dame saw the filmmaker return to Locarno. This could easily be a return trip for the filmmaker in Cannes 2023.