News

Italy’s Sveva Alviti (“Dalida”) and U.S. actor Newton Mayenge (“Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty”) are attached to star in Cannes-set romantic drama “The Other Side of Fame” to be directed by Erik Bernard (“Free Dead or Alive”).

Alviti is a model and actor who played the iconic Egyptian-Italian singer in the 2017 “Dalida” biopic by French director Lisa Azuelos. In “The Other Side of Fame,” she will play a young woman who becomes romantically entangled in Cannes with an elusive American played by Mayenge, “compelling her to confront the profound choice between the allure of fame and the promise of true love,” according to the project’s synopsis.

Besides Mayenge – who played NBA legend Jim Chones in the HBO series about the Los Angeles Lakers – “The Other Side of Fame” will also feature Alejandro De Hoyos, who recently appeared in action comedy “The Man From Toronto...

A genius South Korean lawyer with very poor social skills, Wonder Woman star Connie Nielsen as Danish writer Karen Blixen, Martin Freeman as a cop on the edge, and those foul-mouthed Derry Girls are among the nominees for this year’s International Emmy awards, which were announced today by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The 56 nominees span 20 countries and six continents.

Best drama contenders include South Korea’s Extraordinary Attorney Woo, featuring Park Eun-bin as an autistic rookie female lawyer with a genius Iq; the German period drama The Empress, British thriller The Devil’s Hour starring Peter Capaldi; and Yosi, the Regretful Spy, a historic thriller from Argentina, another Amazon production. On the comedy side, Netflix’s Northern Irish hit Derry Girls is up against Argentine series The Boss from Star+, season 2 of the French reality show send-up Le Flambeau, and Vir Das: Landing, a Netflix stand-up special from the Indian comedy star.

Amazon Prime Video has ordered Lisa Azuelos’s “I Love America,” an L.A.-set modern comedy with French star Sophie Marceau as its next French Original movie.

Azuelos, a well-established filmmaker who previously directed Marceau in the hit French movie “Lol” (Laughing Out Loud) co-wrote “I Love America” with Gael Fierro. Autopilot is producing the film which will launch exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in France, and around the world in 2022. The cast also includes Djanis Bouzyani, the actor of Hafsia Herzi’s “You Deserve a Lover.”

Marceau stars as Lisa, a single woman who decides to take a chance on love again by catapulting her life from Paris to Los Angeles. Her children flew the coop and her famous, yet absent mother just passed, so Lisa needs a big change.

While in Los Angeles, Lisa reunites with her best friend Luka (Bouzyani), who found success in America with...

Paris — Lisa Azuelos’ tender drama “Sweetheart” follows single mom Heloise (Sandrine Kiberlaine) as she gets ready to bid adieu to her college age daughter, Jade (Thaïs Alessandrin).

Facing her soon-to-empty-nest with bittersweet apprehension, Heloise tries to capture every last moment on camera, with her trusty iPhone never too far from her side.

In that sense, the film, which is screening on Friday, January 18 as part of UniFrance’s Rendez Vous with French Cinema ahead of its domestic release on March 13, wrangles an appealing mix of text and subtext. Actress Alessandrin is Azuelos’ own daughter, and the director happily asserts that she made the film to work through her own feelings when confronted with a similar situation. Variety chatted to Azuelos in the run-up to the Rendez-Vous.

“Sweetheart” is something of a companion piece to your 2008 film “Lol (Laughing Out Loud),” which was also about a mother-daughter relationship and explored the effects of new media.

Kicking off on Jan. 17 with the world premiere of Philippe de Chauveron’s “Serial Bad Weddings 2,” the 21st edition of the UniFrance Rendez-Vous in Paris will showcase a flurry of French comedies, biopics and a raft of documentaries.

The Rendez-Vous in Paris, organized by the promotion org UniFrance, will take place over five days and will bring together 481 buyers from 56 countries, as well as 45 French sales companies.

Besides “Serial Bad Weddings 2,” the sequel of the smash hit film which grossed over $148 million, the anticipated comedy highlights set to have their market premieres at the Rendez-Vous include Hugo Gelin’s “Love at Second Sight,” Philippe Lacheau’s “City Hunter,” Eric Lavaine’s “No Filter,” Lisa Azuelos’s “Sweetheart,” Louis-Julien Petit’s “Invisibles” and Bertrand Blier’s “Heavy Duty.”

Sold by Studiocanal, “Love at Second Sight” is a romantic comedy which marks Gelin’s follow-up to the Omar Sy starrer “Two is a Family.

Dalida screens as part of the 26th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival On Saturday, November 4 at 9:30 Pm at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinemas. Click Here for ticket information. It screens again at the same venue on Sunday, November 5 at 2:30 Pm. Click Here for ticket information

We in the states have enjoyed biographies since the start of cinema, particularly those focusing in on popular stars. And of the show-biz bios, those of singers seem to attract film goers. In the late 1940’s Larry Parks was a sensation in The Jolson Story, so much so that he stepped in for Al in a sequel Jolson Sings Again. In more recent years Bobby Darrin’s life inspired Beyond The Sea and Jamie Foxx nabbed an Oscar as Mr. Charles in Ray. Surely this same genre has been done in other countries, say…France. Just 10 years ago Marion Cotillard snagged...

Colcoa is keeping up with the times. Now in its twenty-first year, the lauded French film festival, sponsored by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, has added a pair of forward-thinking new categories for its newest edition. This year will include a virtual reality program and a web series competition, in addition to its Cinema, Television and Shorts competitions.

“These two new popular formats offer more opportunities to showcase the creativity of French producers and filmmakers as well as the diversity of French production,” said François Truffart, Colcoa Executive Producer and Artistic Director. “While entertainment is still the key word for the program, with a balanced mix of comedies and dramas, several topical issues will cover the program this year, including the environment, discrimination, racism, terrorism, and the role of the artist in society. More than ever, Colcoa will offer a unique opportunity to see these universal topics from different angles.”

Read...

Event backed by Franco-American Cultural Fund to showcase Vr, web series for first time.

Thirty-four features and documentaries will compete for the Colcoa Cinema Awards as part of the 21st Colcoa French Film Festival that runs from April 24-May 2 in Hollywood.

The competition kicks off on April 24 with the North American premiere of Claude Lelouch’s Everyone’s Life and ends on May 2 with the North American premiere of Eric Lavaine’s new rom-com You Choose starring Alexandra Lamy.

The line-up includes Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Stephane Brizet’s A Woman’s Life (pictured), Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay, Lisa Azuelos’s Dalida, and Marie-Camille Mansion-Chaar’s Heaven Will Wait.

The event will showcase a record 82 films, television series and web series, 70 of which will compete for the Colcoa Awards.

The festival includes the After 10 Series, Colcoa Classics, Colcoa.Doc World Cinema Produced by France, Focus On A Filmmaker dedicated to Brizé, Film Noir Series...

Born in Egypt into an Italian family, Dalida reigned as one of France’s most famous singers from the late 1950s through the 1980s, with a repertoire of hits as vast and varied as her private life was tumultuous and tragic. A career and existence ripe for a biographical movie, then, and Dalida from French writer-director Lisa Azuelos (Lol) does try to pack in an awful lot in its two-hour running time. This might be part of the problem, however, as the glitzy drama succumbs to quite a few of the usual biopic-of-the-week symptoms, including a near-constant preference for plot and...

Exclusive: Company also due to launch sales on Nicloux’s To The Ends Of The Earth and Roland Møller-starrer A Bluebird In My Heart.

Paris-based Alma Cinema has boarded sales on Swedish-Iranian director Milad Alami’s debut Copenhagen-set feature The Charmer about a young Iranian man desperately searching for a local woman who will help him stay in Denmark.

Ardalan Esmaili stars in the intense psychological drama as the protagonist who finds love with one woman but also falls foul of a man whose wife he has also attempted to woo.

It marks Alami’s first feature after a series of award-winning shorts including Nothing Can Touch Me and Void, which played in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2014 as a part of the Nordic Factory initiative.

“It’s a really touching film. The director is absolutely extraordinary. I think he’s got what it takes to be a new Joachim Trier or Michaël R. Roskam,” said Alma Cinema...

Exclusive: Company also due to launch sales on Guillaume Nicloux’s To The Ends Of The Earth and Roland Møller-starrer A Bluebird In My Heart.

Paris-based Alma Cinema has boarded sales on Swedish-Iranian director Milad Alami’s debut Copenhagen-set feature The Charmer about a young Iranian man desperately searching for a local woman who will help him stay in Denmark.

Ardalan Esmaili stars in the intense psychological drama as the protagonist who finds love with one woman but also falls foul of a man whose wife he has also attempted to woo.

It marks Alami’s first feature after a series of award-winning shorts including Nothing Can Touch Me and Void, which played in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2014 as a part of the Nordic Factory initiative.

The Charmer

“It’s a really touching film. The director is absolutely extraordinary. I think he’s got what it takes to be a new Joachim Trier,” said Alma Cinema...

"How good to see you again so soon, Mr. Wick." In less than a month, Baba Yaga returns and fans worldwide will get to bear witness as he heads to Rome to unleash his wrath on the world's finest assassins. Keanu Reeves returns as the legendary Wick with a deadly supporting cast that includes Common (Suicide Squad), Laurence Fishburne (Passengers), Riccardo Scamarcio (Dalida), Ruby Rose (xXx: The Return of Xander Cage), John Leguizamo (The Infiltrator), Ian McShane (American Gods), and Lance Reddick (Bosch), amongst others. Check out the first clip below, featuring Wick returning to The Continental where he has a quick chat with Reddick's Charon before making a request to see the manager, played by McShane.   Legendary hitman John Wick is forced back out of retirement by a former associate plotting to seize control of a shadowy international assassins' guild. Bound by a blood oath to help him, John...

Superstar French singer Dalida played by lookalike Italian model turned actress Sveva Alviti Photo: Luc Roux

French cinema seems obsessed with making films about legendary singers from Edith Piaf (La Vie En Rose) and Serge Gainsbourg to Claude François (My Way or Clo-Clo as it was known in France).

Director Lisa Azuelos presents Dalida for the opening of the 19th Rendez-vous with French Cinema watched by Unifrance’s Isabelle Giordano Photo: Richard Mowe The latest recipient for the treatment is Dalida, an Italian-French singer who had a traumatic childhood in Egypt before she turned entertainer, selling more than 170 million records before her suicide in 1987. Her life veered between adulation and depression, complicated romantic entanglements, and her inability to have children after an abortion.

The film has just opened on French screens and was shown last night (January 12) to buyers attending the 19th Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema, which showcases new...