Wild Bunch Packing Kusturica’s Cool Water and Dardenne Bros.’ Drama Starring Cecile de France

Wild Bunch will come to Cannes packing a half dozen competition films, but they’ve got a huge slate of films to sell and two noteworthy titles have been added to their crop. The Dardenne bros. have grabbed Cecile de France for an untitled drama that narratively resembles some of their previous efforts, and before Emir Kusturica teams with Johnny Depp on Pancho Villa, he’ll direct Cool Water – a comedy, road movie that will tap into some of the zany scenarios that Kusturica is best know for, but as chance might have it – will be the first time that the Serbian helmer works from someone else’s script. Both projects count as early Cannes 2011 predictions – as they are both going to be lensed this summer.

Cool Water is based on Gabriel Bornstein’s script, this is being billed as a road movie with a twist. Two Palestinian brothers must drive from Jerusalem to Ramallah in what would normally be a 45-minute journey. The hitch, however, is that they are carting their father’s dead body in the trunk of their car. The Brave New Work Filmproduktions and Fidelite production will shoot (with director of photography Thierry Arbogast onboard) this summer. Wild Bunch Distribution France and Wild Bunch Germany will release in their respective territories.

The untitled Dardenne project centers on an 11-year-old boy, abandoned by his father, who ends up with an unwitting young woman (Cecile de France) to care for him. Produced by Les Films du Fleuve, Archipel 35 and Lucky Red, the film will be distributed by Diaphana in France. Lensing is expected to begin sometime this summer.