The Arte France Cinéma selection committee will be supporting a trio of eyebrow raising projects that will go into production in 2021. At the top of the list we find Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Les Herbes sèches (translation: Dried Herbs). Ceylan returns to Anatolia for a narrative he describes as “the difficult daily struggle that the inhabitants of this region must wage, as well as the dynamics of the geographic, ethnic or social fabric that surrounds them.” This is about a young, single teacher in a village in Anatolia, whose meeting with another teacher will help overcome the gloom of his existence. Deniz Celiloglu, Merve Dizdar and Musab Ekici star in the film. Memento Films Production, NBC Film, Komplizen and ATMO are producing.
While Mia Hansen-Løve awaits what will likely be a Berlin showing for Bergman Island in 2021, is setting up here next project with headliners Léa Seydoux, Pascal Greggory, Nicole Garcia and Melvil Poupaud. Un beau matin (translation: A Nice Morning) sees Sandra (Seydoux) embark with her family on an obstacle course in hospitals and nursing homes to install Georg (Greggory) in a safe place, Sandra unexpectedly meets Clément (Poupaud), a lost friend with whom a passionate relationship opens. Georg suffers from a neurodegenerative disease. The filmmaker hopes to shed light on “the elegance, the courage and the fragility of a man in the face of the violence of such a disease.” Les Films Pelléas and Razor Film are producing.
Finally, Quentin Dupieux has already begun filming on his next project: Incroyabe mais vrai. He re-teams with Reality topliner Alain Chabat who acts alongside Léa Drucker, Benoît Magimel and Anaïs Demoustier. This is about a couple who move into the suburban lodge of their dreams. But the real estate agent warned them: what is in the basement is likely to change their lives. Dupieux calls this “an exploration (via satire) our obsessive behaviors, will power and the search for eternal youth”. Look for this project to be a Cannes 2021 contender.
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).
