Where there’s smoke, there’s fire and today we can confirm some exciting news – the Nuri Bilge Ceylan camp is indeed moving forward on his next feature film which will roll out this summer. We add mentioned a tidbit of casting news last week, and now we have a title and official synopsis via the Arte France Cinéma folks who are backing a half dozen new film projects. Titled Soleil blafard (Yorgun Günes) (or the direct translation of Pale Sun), Sabri lives alone in the suburbs of Ankara. His daughter, who lives in Istanbul, invites him to spend a few days with her and her young son at her seaside vacation home. After the initial joy of their reunion, tensions arise between them, bringing long-buried resentments to the surface. This is said to explore the distance that time and silence create between people, through a father-daughter relationship woven with love and weariness. The Memento folks are producing the project which will film from June to August in Turkey. Look for casting news to be unveiled during Cannes.
Another nugget is Anne Fontaine will be filming Le Serpent Majuscule – an adaptation of Pierre Lemaître’s novel of the same name which is set in 1973 and follow a female hitman whose erratic behaviour is beginning to worry her employers. Isabelle Huppert, Benoît Poelvoorde and Raphaël Personnaz have been cast. La Foudre by the Larrieu bros. will soon move into production with Hafsia Herzi, Arieh Worthalter and Sara Giraudeau. A loose adaptation of Pierric Bailly’s novel of the same name, the film will centre on Jeanne, a shepherdess in a wild valley in the Pyrenees. When she discovers that her school friend, Vickie, has been accused of murdering her neighbour, she sets out to find out more and finds herself drawn into an unexpected tale of passion.
Kyushu Moon by Stéphanie Argerich, will see Alba Rohrwacher star as a recently divorced Swiss journalist travelling to the island of Kyushu to investigate male celibacy, a phenomenon that has become a cause for concern in a Japan facing a rapidly declining population. Her unexpected encounter with Moroto will shake her convictions to the core. A September shoot is set. And Iryna Tsilyk is moving into animation with Red Zone which will depict a day in the life of the director, poet and filmmaker in Kyiv during wartime. Palme d’Or winning Flora Anna Buda will bring the project to life with her skills.
