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Following “Marie’s Story” and “Take a Chance on Me,” French director Jean-Pierre Améris is reteaming with Paris-based Indie Sales on his next movie, “It Takes Two to Tango,” a romantic comedy starring Valérie Lemercier.

Currently filming in Geneva and France, the film also stars Gérard Darmon (“King”) and Patrick Timsit (“Brother and Sister”). The plot revolves around Antoine Toussaint (Darmon), a famous and disillusioned 70-year-old crooner who meets Victoire (Lemercier), a good-natured fan with a few loose wires, while on a train to Geneva where he plans to end his life. This unlikely encounter thwarts all Antoine’s plans, for better or worse.

“It Takes Two to Tango” is produced by Denis Carot and Sophie Revil at France’s Escazal Films and will be released in France by Arp in April 2025.

“We are excited to re-team with Jean-Pierre Améris and bring his universe and heart-warming characters to audiences around the world,...

Bill Maher welcomed Katie Couric onto his “Club Random” podcast and passionately defended Woody Allen while the two discussed canceled artists in Hollywood. Maher said “I don’t think he committed that crime” in reference to Dylan Farrow’s molestation allegation against Allen, adding: “There was two police investigations that exonerated him.”

“There’s these actors who won’t work with him anymore and some of them made movies with him are saying, ‘I regret doing that.’ What a bunch of pussies!” Maher said. “First of all, it’s a very improbable crime that they’re accusing him of. Plainly, the other party had motivation and [was] vindictive.”

Maher referenced the HBO documentary “Allen v. Farrow” and said it was all from Mia Farrow’s point of view, alluding that it can’t fully be trusted as an unbiased account of what allegedly happened between Woody Allen and his adopted daughter,...

Woody Allen’s Coup de Chance starts appropriately with a random encounter and finishes with an out-of-nowhere intervention. But what lies in between those moments of chance is tightly scripted and purposeful, with barely a scene or line out of place. The film is at once among Allen’s most economical works and one of his most free-spirited.

When Alain (Niels Schneider), a fiction writer, runs into Fanny (Lou de Laâge) on a Parisian street near the art auction house where the latter works, it’s a seemingly fleeting moment. Fanny seems charmed but not overly impacted by this encounter with Alain, a passing acquaintance from their time at the Lycée Français in New York. Slightly restless in her marriage to Jean (Melvil Poupaud), a financier whose one-percenter friends describe her as a “trophy wife,” Fanny sees no harm in reconnecting with Alain. You can imagine where this might go.

Woody Allen’s latest film “Coup de Chance,” his 50th feature, is getting a U.S. release. The movie will be distributed by MPI Media Group, the company that has released Allen’s latest few films ever since allegations resurfaced that he sexually abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow.

“Coup de Chance” will open at the Quad Cinema in New York City on April 5 (other venues will be confirmed at a later date), followed by a VOD and digital release on April 12.

MPI Media Group previously released “A Rainy Day in New York” (2020) and “Rifkin’s Festival” (2022) in the U.S. “Rainy Day” was originally meant to be released through Allen’s deal with Amazon Studios, but Amazon ultimately canceled the deal when the abuse allegations resurfaced. (Allen won a legal settlement against Amazon.) Allen has been a persona-non-grata in Hollywood, but he’s continued to make movies in Europe.

“Coup de Chance...

Controversial director Woody Allen’s 50th film “Coup de Chance” is coming to U.S. theaters. MPI Media Group will release the movie on April 5 for North American markets, with a digital/VOD release on April 12.

The film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, drew both protests and an enthusiastic two-and-a-half minute standing ovation.

U.S. theatrical distributors have generally avoided Allen since the #MeToo movement resurfaced Dylan Farrow’s allegations of child molestation against him, and actors like Rebecca Hall, Timothée Chalamet and Greta Gerwig have expressed regret over working with him.

“Coup de Chance,” which translates to “stroke of luck,” stars Valerie Lemercier, Niels Schneider, Lou de Laage, Elsa Zylberstein and Melvil Poupaud in a tale of murder and intrigue that follows a beautiful couple living in Paris whose lives change when a former flame re-enters their orbit.

Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman...

Updated with latest: The Venice Film Festival began August 30 with opening-night movie Comandante, an Italian World War II drama, kicking off a lineup for the venerable fest’s 80th edition that includes world premieres of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, David Fincher’s The Killer, Ava DuVernay’s Origins, and new films from lightning-rod directors Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson.

Deadline is on the ground to watch all the key films. Below is a compilation of our reviews from the fest, which last year awarded Laura Poitras’ documentary All The Beauty and the Bloodshed its Golden Lion for best film.

Click on the film titles below to read the reviews in full, and keep checking back as we add more movies throughout the fest, which runs through September 9.

Adagio

Section: Competition

Director: Stefano Sollima

Cast: Pierfrancesco Favino,...

Tempting though it is to pen this review in the voice and style of Mort Rifkin, the most indelible Woody Allen character in years, the embattled New York-born director deserves a fairer shake––maybe a fair trial, if we could say. In this early-2020s era of a gradual pushback against MeToo morality, Allen actually found himself, with Coup de Chance, enjoying a high-ish-profile Venice premiere earlier this week on the verge of a legitimate comeback. A new Variety interview hinted at a path for resuming work in his former production model, an absolute pick of American A-listers again if (perhaps) just one of them scabs. But do we want this? Isn’t it all still enveloped in a kind of discomfort?

Making a very natural transition into classy Francophone cinema, here he has the choice of a potential royal flush of French stars. Coup de Chance is rather pleasurable...

“Coup de Chance” bowed at the 2023 Venice Film Festival on Monday, September 4. Written and directed by Woody Allen, it’s the filmmaker’s 50th feature and the first shot entirely in the French language with English subtitles. The 87-year-old Allen was controversially on hand to attend the screening in person, drawing a small group of protestors on site due to longstanding but never substantiated child sexual abuse allegations made by his daughter Dylan Farrow. The audience in attendance at the world premiere warmly embraced the feature and its writer-director with a reported three-minute ovation upon its conclusion.

Premiering out of competition at the festival, the film was shot in Paris and features an all-French cast. A twisty tale of murder, “Coup de Chance” stars Lou de Laage and Melvil Poupaud as Fanny and Jean, described as “an ideal couple who have everything. Fulfilled in their professional life, they live in...

While promoting his 50th – and quite possibly, last — movie Coup de Chance at the Venice Film Festival, Woody Allen weighed in on cancel culture, the #MeToo Movement, and whether any woman has ever complained about his behavior on set.

“I said years ago that I should have been a poster boy [for the #MeToo movement] and they got all excited about that,” Allen, 87, told Variety in an interview before Sunday’s premiere of the French language film that he wrote and directed. “I’ve made 50 films. I’ve always had very good parts for women, always had women in the crew, always paid them the exact same amount that we paid men, worked with hundreds of actresses, and never, ever had a single complaint from any of them at any point. Not a single one ever said, ‘Working with him, he was mean or he was harassing.’ That’s just not been an issue.

Woody Allen’s 50th film as a director, Coup de Chance, got an enthusiastic reception Monday night at its Venice Film Festival premiere. The 87-year-old filmmaker was cheered to his feet as the credits came down on his French thriller, which co-stars Lou de Laage, Valerie Lemercier, Melvil Poupaud and Niels Schneider. The warm standing ovation lasted five minutes, with Allen and his cast waving and bowing from the grand balcony of Venice’s Sala Grande cinema.

Outside the theater earlier in the evening the situation was very different, however. A group of protesters demonstrated against what they called the “rape culture” of the Venice festival and marched past the cinema’s entrance just as Allen was walking down the red carpet. The protestors, which numbered about 20 people, shouted slogans including “no rape culture” and “we are speaking for those without a voice against the director rapists.” The Venice Film...

Woody Allen received a three-minute standing ovation at the Venice premiere of “Coup de Chance” on Monday night, which would have gone on longer had the filmmaker not started to exit. After two minutes and 30 seconds of sustained applause once the film finished, Allen began to make his way toward the door, cutting the standing ovation short. The filmmaker looked visibly moved during the reaction and at one point took out a tissue.

Allen was greeted in the theater by a standing ovation before the movie even screened as fans tried to catch video of him. The reception was the same on the red carpet, with fans cheering him on enthusiastically — however, just outside the carpet a group of protesters walked by. According to social media posts, the protesters removed their shirts and handed out sheets of paper encouraging the fest to “turn the spotlight off of rapists.”

“This year...

Woody Allen’s Coup de Chance premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Monday. The film, which was directed and written by Allen himself, received a five-minute ovation from the audience.

Coup de Chance centers around Fanny and Jean who look like the ideal married couple—they’re both professionally accomplished, they live in a gorgeous apartment in an exclusive neighborhood of Paris, and they seem to be in love just as much as they were when they first met. But when Fanny accidentally bumps into Alain, a former high school classmate, she’s swept off her feet. They soon see each other again and get closer and closer.

Woody Allen stunned by the enthusiastic response to Coup de Chance at #Venezia80 which received a 5-minute ovation pic.twitter.com/vjRd2FSYLV

— Deadline Hollywood (@Deadline) September 4, 2023

Allen’s fiftieth movie stars Lou de Laâge, Valérie Lemercier, Melvil Poupaud, Niels Schneider,...

We are told to judge the art rather than the artist, but sometimes the artist makes this difficult. Woody Allen still carries loud freight – the freight of someone who was accused by his daughter, Dylan Farrow, of child sexual abuse. People will argue that none of the above matters, that he has been convicted of no crime, that only what is onscreen counts. And so we try to watch Coup de Chance, an adequate seriocomic immorality tale that had its world premiere Monday at the Venice Film Festival, with eyes and minds wide open.

An affluent partner to a much younger spouse finds himself in a sentimental bind. So tight is this knot that he must resort to extra-legal solutions in order to extricate himself so he calls up a hoodlum acquaintance and nervously requests a meeting “in the usual spot.” Were this the 1980s, the rich man might have been played by Martin Landau; a decade later, the thug on the other end of the line could have resembled Tony Sirico. In 2023’s “Coup de Chance,” that usual spot happens to be on the banks of the Seine, just below Pont-Neuf.

Marking the director’s French-language debut (if hardly his first trip to Paris), Woody Allen’s 50th feature, “Coup de Chance,” proves that every now and then, much can be gained in translation. And though the film hardly treads new ground, it nevertheless gamely reshuffles many of Allen’s pet-obsessions and stock...

Woody Allen got a warm ovation from journalists at the press conference for “Coup de Chance” at the Venice Film Festival, where he managed to avoid any controversial questions about his stalled career and the sexual abuse allegations made against him by his daughter, Dylan Farrow. That was in large part thanks to his longtime cinematographer, Italian superstar Vittorio Storaro, who spoke for nearly a third of the press conference, while answering a single question.

When asked if he would consider making another film in New York, Allen said he’s got “a very good idea for New York.” “If some guy steps out of the shadow and says, ‘We’ll finance your film in New York’ and obeys all my restrictions — if some foolish person agrees to that, then I will make the film in New York.”

The press conference was also attended by Lou de Laage and Valerie Lemercier,...

Woody Allen met the international press at the Venice Film Festival on Monday to support his 50th film as a director, Coup de Chance. Premiering out of competition, Coup de Chance is about the important role chance and luck play in our lives. It is Allen’s first feature told entirely in French, with a cast of all French stars, including Lou de Laage, Valerie Lemercier, Melvil Poupaud and Niels Schneider.

Early in the Venice press conference, Allen was asked to reflect on the role luck — or the absence of it — has played in his own life.

“I’ve been very, very lucky my whole life,” Allen said. “I had two loving parents. I have good friends. I have a wonderful wife and marriage and children — and I’ve never been in the hospital. I’ve never had anything terrible happen to me.”

He continued: “And I’ve had — over...

The standing-room-only press conference for Woody Allen’s “Coup de Chance” was held Monday afternoon at the Venice Film Festival, with the director making a rare public appearance to promote the French-language thriller. It premieres out of competition on the Lido this evening.

As with Allen’s 2020 “Rifkin’s Festival,” “Coup de Chance” is a European production; Allen has not shot a film in his hometown since 2019’s “A Rainy Day in New York,” starring Timothee Chalamet and Selena Gomez. Amazon Studios pulled that film from release following the resurgence of sexual abuse allegations against Allen stemming from his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in 1992. Support for Allen now largely comes from abroad and at European festivals.

There were no prohibitions on any kinds of questions being asked by the journalists in attendance, but none asked Allen anything controversial.

When asked if he would make another film in New York, Allen said,...

Woody Allen was given a rapturous reception as he hit the Venice Film Festival on Monday with his 50th film, the French-language thriller Coup de Chance which premieres Out Of Competition this evening.

The journalists in the press conference broke out into spontaneous applause as the 87-year-old director walked into the room.

“I have been very, very lucky. I have been lucky my whole life. I had two loving parents and good friends. I have a wonderful wife and marriage, two children… When I started making films all the people chose to emphasize what I was able to do well… they were generous,” Allen said of his life and career.

It is Allen’s first A-list festival appearance since premiering Café Society in Cannes in 2016, with the director withdrawing from the limelight amid repeated public sexual assault allegations by adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow, which he has denied.

Allen was last...

Exclusive: There has been mystery for weeks over which Hollywood talent will attend the Venice Film Festival amid the two strikes but the clouds are finally starting to lift.

We’ve confirmed with sources that Ferrari star Adam Driver will be on the Lido next week to promote Michael Mann’s anticipated new movie, thus becoming the biggest U.S. actor to date to commit to the festival. The Daily Mail first reported that news.

Ferrari secured an interim agreement from SAG a while back so this isn’t hugely surprising but there was still a question over whether SAG actors would feel uncomfortable over the ‘optics’. They may still. But SAG-AFTRA leadership were adamant yesterday that actors in movies with interim agreements should be at festivals to promote them. Their message: this is helpful to independent cinema and the cause. That affirmation from SAG helped a number of actors make up their minds.

The 50th movie from controversial filmmaker Woody Allen is a thriller that was shot in French and will be making its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, which is set to run from August 30th through September 9th. The film is called Coup de Chance (or Stroke of Luck), and an English-subtitled trailer can be seen in the embed above.

Allen has described Coup de Chance as a “poisonous romantic thriller” and spiritual successor to his popular 2005 psychological thriller Match Point. This one has the following synopsis: Fanny and Jean have everything of the ideal couple: fulfilled in their professional life, they live in a magnificent apartment in the beautiful districts of Paris and seem to be in love as on the first day. But when Fanny crosses, by chance, Alain, a former high school friend, she is immediately capsized. They see each other again very quickly and get closer and closer.

It was expected that the Venice Film Festival would program two films from controversy-courting directors this year, Roman Polanski’s “The Palace” and Woody Allen’s “Coup de Chance,” already predicted for the event running August 30 through September 9. And what’s also expected is the inevitable mix of backlash and appreciation for including the auteurs, who in European countries fare better than in the United States and often comfortably find distribution for new work. Polanski has admitted to, and been accused of, sexual abuse throughout his career and forgiven by his victim Samantha Greiner in the years since he was arrested and charged for raping her when she was 13 in 1977. Allen has denied abusing Dylan Farrow in 1992 and was not charged with a crime.

In an interview with Variety discussing this year’s Venice lineup, festival director Alberto Barbera reaffirmed his commitment to presenting their new films, saying he does...

The 2023 Venice Film Festival will boast the premieres of new movies from an array of top filmmakers, including Sofia Coppola, David Fincher, and Bradley Cooper. It’s also decided to offer a platform to some more controversial directors, with both Woody Allen and Roman Polanski securing out-of-competition premieres for their new pictures.

Polanski’s new film, The Palace, has been described as a black comedy set at a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps. Its cast primarily comprises European actors, though both Mickey Rourke and Monty Python’s John Cleese will appear in the film.

You can pre-set your Twitter (er, X?) alerts to outrage.

The 80th Venice Film Festival unveiled an impressive and — SAG-AFTRA and Wag strike-permitting — star-studded lineup on Tuesday, that should draw international critics and press in droves to the Lido again this year.

But controversy will also again be part of the 2023 Biennale, thanks to a selection of movies from directors nearly as well known for their scandals as for their films.

Roman Polanski new feature, The Palace, scored an out-of-competition slot, as did Coup de Chance, the latest feature from Woody Allen. And Luc Besson will premiere his new feature, DogMan, in competition in Venice. All three filmmakers have been the focus of abuse allegations and, in the wake of #MeToo, the targets of online attacks and cancellation campaigns. Though Polanski, who fled the U.S. in 1978 after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teen girl, is the only one...

Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera has shown once again that he is not scared to court controversy.

The festival head has given Roman Polanski a safe festival berth for his new movie The Palace at Venice, in a selection that is likely to spark debate alongside the inclusion of Woody Allen’s Coeur de Chance.

They are among 12 films due to play Out of Competition at the 80th edition running August 30 to September 9.

Barbera told Italian journalists in a Q&a after the main lineup announcement that Polanski, who turns 90 in August, will not make the trip to the Lido, while Woody is down to attend.

Related: Venice Is Still Hopeful That Its Red Carpet Will Be Full Of Stars If Movies Such As ‘Ferrari’, ‘Priscilla’ & More Are Granted SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreements

The Palace will still make for a starry red carpet with its ensemble cast featuring Oliver Masucci,...

In the end, “The Idol” was neither as offensive as its detractors claimed nor as “revolutionary” as co-creator Sam Levinson believed. Like so many works of art that too openly aim for provocation, the five-episode HBO drama got in its own way, passing off reductive clichés as radical transgression. Much of the discourse around the show has centered on sex, the most attention-grabbing of its themes. But flashy as its approach may be, how “The Idol” depicts nudity, kink and power dynamics is less indicative of the series’ core problems than its take on pop music and stardom — ostensibly its primary subjects and the center of season finale “Jocelyn Forever.” Even with such an abbreviated buildup, the episode still managed to underwhelm, offering neither shocking twists nor effective catharsis. For a show in part about fandom, “The Idol” failed to inspire one of its own.

“The Idol” is only the...

Roughly a month before Venice Film Festival’s 2023 lineup announcement, the buzz around the competition is heating up with several star-studded films by heavyweight directors in the mix, including Pablo Larrain (“El Conde”), Michael Mann (“Ferrari“), Sofia Coppola (“Priscilla“), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) and Michel Franco (“Memory”).

These titles are believed to have been officially invited to the Lido in competition, according to sources.

Larraín’s follow-up to “Spencer,” “El Conde” depicts dictator Augusto Pinochet as a Vampire with a cast led by Chilean star Alfredo Castro.

Another film with a genre element, Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” is a surrealist science-fiction romance based on an adaptation of Alasdair Grey’s novel of the same name, and starring Emma Stone as Belle Baxter, a Frankenstein-like woman who is brought back to life after her brain is replaced with that of her unborn child. Stone stars opposite Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Christopher Abbott and Margaret Qualley.

The company has boarded star-powered French features ‘Take Me Home’ and ’Under The Rainbow’.

Newen Connect, the international sales arm of the Tfi Group’s Newen Studios, has snapped up rights to star-powered French features Take Me Home and Under the Rainbow and will kick off sales in Cannes. Both will be released in France by Ugc Distribution.

Take Me Home is the first feature from directing duo Karine Blanc and Michel Tavares and stars Clovis Cornillac, alongside Eyé Haïdara in a story about a struggling country singer who moves with her children to a mountain village and turns the...

The newly announced Cannes Film Festival lineup is filled with highly anticipated films from some of the biggest directors on the planet — but it’s not without its share of controversy. The festival attracted headlines for its decision to program “Jeanne du Barry,” the new Maïwenn film that stars Johnny Depp as French monarch Louis Xv, as the opening night selection. Depp’s first major role since his high-profile defamation trial against Amber Heard was always bound to be controversial, but the film became more of a lightning rod after a French journalist sued the director for assault.

Cannes director Thierry Fremaux defended his decision to program the film throughout the week, explaining that he saw the selection as fair game because neither Depp nor Maïwenn has been legally convicted of any crime.

“I don’t see Maïwenn’s film as a controversial choice at all,” Fremaux said in an interview.

Woody Allen’s “Coup de Chance,” the controversial filmmaker’s 50th movie, has found a French distributor. Metropolitan FilmExport, one of country’s biggest independent distributors, has come on board to release the movie in France.

The release date has not yet been set, but sources close to the film say it could world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

Metropolitan FilmExport has never handled a movie directed by Allen before as it typically focuses on commercial U.S. movies such as the “Hunger Games” franchise and “Evil Dead Rises.”

While Allen’s movies have also always been widely popular in France, his previous film “Rifkin’s Festival” sold under 100,000 tickets for Apollo Films after world premiering at the San Sebastian Festival. It was the director’s worst B.O. performance in France. Budgeted in the $20-million range, “Coup de Chance” was a pricey acquisition that not many French distributors could afford to gamble on.

Melvil Poupaud and Marion Cotillard in Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother And Sister (Frère Et Sœur) screening in Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Photo: Shanna Besson/Why Not Productions

In the first instalment with Melvil Poupaud (who is being honoured at the French Institute in New York next month) we discuss the dark side of Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother And Sister (Frère Et Sœur), Mathieu Amalric in A Christmas Tale and Kings And Queens, Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning, a touch of François Ozon’s By The Grace Of God, James Joyce’s The Dead, Eric Rohmer’s A Summer’s Tale, and Woody Allen’s Coup De Chance with Lou de Laâge, Niels Schneider and Valérie Lemercier.

Melvil Poupaud with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I always understood that the most gratifying thing when you’re an actor is when a great director such as Eric Rohmer...

Duo are behind Dominik Moll’s ’The Night of the 12th’

Haut et Court’s Carole Scotta and Barbara Letellier were named best producers of the year at the 16th annual edition of France’s Academy of Film Arts & Sciences’ Daniel Toscan du Plantier Prize held on Monday night (February 14) in Paris.

The duo are notably behind Dominik Moll’s investigative drama The Night Of The 12th, which has been sweeping awards season in France, winning the Best Film Lumiere Award and nominated for 10 César awards.

A swanky gala dinner celebrated the winning pair along with the finalists for the prize,...

The independent film business is again showing signs of rude health as the global film industry struggles to recover post-pandemic. Sundance is often taken as the pace-setter, and distribution deals were plentiful this year, with seven- and eight-figure sales for the likes of Theater Camp (to Searchlight for an estimated 8 million), Flora and Son (Apple TV+, 20 million) and Fair Play (Netflix, 20 million), just the biggest of around a dozen 2023 Park City pickups. But Berlin’s European Film Market will be the industry’s true acid test.

“Sundance is more U.S.-focused in general,” says Alice Laffillé, vp sales at FilmNation, which did the Apple TV+ deal for Flora and Son. “There are always some big, splashy deals with streamers and U.S. buyers like Neon, A24 or Magnolia. Berlin is the first real international market, where we see where things stand.”

Berlin deals, which often involve the entire world,...

I did not successfully lobby for Woody Allen Summer Project 2022 placing on our list of most-anticipated 2023 films. Rather than get into any reasoning for or arguments against the artist’s exile, we might all focus on the art: yet another work about somebody committing a horrible crime and finding small moral struggle with their decision.

I jest, though Allen’s hyped his next as a “poisonous romantic thriller” with explicit reference to Match Point, and today it’s known the picture––his first French-language production, titled Coup de Chance (Stroke of Luck en Anglais)––will make some appearance at the Berlinale’s EFM this month. Attached to the news is a first still featuring stars Lou De Laâge and Niels Schneider, the explicit reference to Coup as a policier (à la Le Cercle Rouge or Touchez pas au grisbi), and this small summary from the director:

“Coup de Chance is a contemporary story of romance,...

Woody Allen might still be persona non grata for many in the U.S., but international distributors will likely be clamoring to see his new film, Coup de Chance, which will be presented to buyers at the upcoming European Film Market.

WestEnd Films, in collaboration with Gravier Productions, will kick off sales for the film in Berlin next week.

Allen’s 50th feature marks the director’s French-language debut and features an ensemble cast of local stars, including Lou De Laâge (The Innocents), Valérie Lemercier (Aline), Melvil Poupaud (Summer of 85) and Niels Schneider (Heartbeats).

In a statement, Allen called the the movie a “story of romance, passion and violence set in contemporary Paris. Shot all over the city and a little bit in the countryside, it evolves around a romance between two young people who are old friends and devolves into marital infidelity and ultimately crime.”

The movie reunites Allen...

Exclusive: Woody Allen’s latest film is heading to the EFM market in Berlin with WestEnd Films, we can reveal.

To date, plot details have been kept under wraps on Allen’s 50th film but we can reveal the contemporary romantic thriller, previously known as Wasp 22, will chart the story of two young people whose bond leads to marital infidelity and ultimately crime. Above is a first look image.

Allen’s first French-language movie is a “policier” (as the French call it) in the genre of Match Point and was shot across Paris. ‘Coup de chance’ roughly translates into English as ‘stroke of luck’.

Cast includes Lou de Laage, Melvil Poupaud, Valerie Lemercier, Niels Schneider, Elsa Zylberstein, Bárbara Goenaga, Grégory Gadebois, Anne Loiret, Sara Martins, Guillaume de Tonquédec and Arnaud Viard.

Allen’s longtime producing partner Letty Aronson is producing for Gravier Productions. Also aboard are Allen regulars such as veteran Dp Vittorio Storaro,...

Woody Allen’s ’Wasp 2022,’ ’Murder Mystery 2’ and Apple TV+’s Benjamin Franklin biopic among the prestige projects to shoot.

Paris enjoyed record levels of production in 2022, with 102 features and 68 series filmed in the city throughout the year.

The French capital saw 7,500 shooting days, up from 2021’s then-record 7,000 shooting days. In 2019, before the pandemic, Paris registered 5,000 days of shooting.

Feature film production dipped slightly from 110 films in 2021, but series were up from 64 the previous year.

Among the major international titles filming in Paris were Woody Allen’s Coup De Chance, rumoured to be the prolific director’s 50th and last film.

Untitled 50th Woody Allen project

Woody Allen returns to Paris for what is his 50th film and what could be a new film in the vein of Match Point. The October shoot had Valerie Lemercier, Niels Schneider, Elsa Zylberstein, Lou de Laage and Melvil Poupaud onboard for a project coined as a “poisonous romantic thriller.” Letty Aronson naturally produced the film and master (long-time Allen contributor) Vittorio Storaro returns as the cinematographer.

Gist: This is described as a poisonous romantic thriller.

Release Date/Prediction: While Cannes would be a serious contender, we could see this going to Locarno or San Sebastian.…...

Brussels-based sales outfit unveils Paris Rendez-Vous slate.

Brussels-based sales company Best Friend Forever (Bff) has acquired Michaël Dichter’s pre-teen feature The Fantastic Three and Angela Ottobah’s genre drama Rapture.

Bff will also market premiere Nicolas Silhol’s Anti-Squat at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris this week.

The Fantastic Three (Les Trois Fantastiques) is Dichter’s feature debut and is a continuation of his César-nominated short film Pollux.

Set in contemporary Eastern France, the film follows a group of pre-teen boys, aka “the fantastic three,” who lean on each other amidst their complicated home lives. When the brother of...

Brussels-based sales outfit unveils Rendez-Vous slate.

Brussels-based sales company Best Friend Forever (Bff) has acquired Michaël Dichter’s pre-teen feature The Fantastic Three and Angela Ottobah’s genre drama Rapture.

Bff will also market premiere Nicolas Silhol’s Anti-Squat at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris this week.

The Fantastic Three (Les Trois Fantastiques) is Dichter’s feature debut and is a continuation of his César-nominated short film Pollux.

Set in contemporary Eastern France, the film follows a group of pre-teen boys, aka “the fantastic three,” who lean on each other amidst their complicated home lives. When the brother of one...

After “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen will return to the French capital for his 50th movie which he’s described as a “poisonous romantic thriller” with a pair of French stars, Valerie Lemercier (“Aline”) and Niels Schneider (“Love Affair(s))”.

The untitled film, the plot of which is being kept under wraps, will start filming next month and will be entirely in French with a budget in the 10-million range. Allen has described the film to be similar to “Match Point,” in that it would be “exciting, dramatic and also very sinister.”

Allen sparked headlines earlier this week after Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia ran a story reporting that the New York-based filmmaker had told them he was planning on retiring. Allen’s representative then issued a statement saying that the director had “no intention of retiring.”

Lemercier is a popular French actor-director whose latest film “Aline,” a movie about Celine Dion,...

Movie musical biopics are a beloved Hollywood tradition and one that — unlike erotic thrillers — shows no signs of slowing down.

Over the years we’ve seen Sissy Spacek win an Oscar as Loretta Lynn in “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Jessica Lange earn a nomination as Patsy Cline in “Sweet Dreams,” and Reese Witherspoon win Best Supporting Actress as June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line.” And that’s just the country music biopics.

Portraying a musical icon is just the next step in an evolving way to showcase triple-threat talent. Jamie Foxx took home the Best Actor Oscar for his transformation into Ray Charles for the 2004 film “Ray.” Joaquin Phoenix showed a new facet to his talent as Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line.” Marion Cotillard burst onto the international scene (and won a Best Actress Oscar) as Edith Piaf in “La Vie En Rose,” and more recently Rami Malek and...

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“Elvis” (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment): Baz Luhrmann’s obsessions are piled on top of other obsessions that are themselves mashed up with ongoing tendencies toward spectacle, extravagance and emotional extremes — that whole “Moulin Rouge!” ethos of Truth Beauty Freedom Love — and this big loud biopic/love letter to Elvis Presley is a visual and sonic blast, with an uncanny Austin Butler as the King. You don’t even have to like the late legend’s music to enjoy this juggernaut of sensation, just find a friend with a giant-screen TV (this one’s already available in 4K) and very loud sound.

Also available:

“Batman: The Long Halloween” (Deluxe Edition) (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment): The Caped Crusader has to hunt down a killer that strikes on various holidays in this two-part animated feature.

“The Black Phone” (Universal): A resourceful boy (with assistance from his visions-having...

The Lena Waithe-penned film about a young singer on the brink of stardom hiding a relationship with her best friend stumbles with too many wrong notes

Beauty, a coming-of-age music drama written by Lena Waithe and directed by Andrew Dosunmu, purports to tell the story of a fictional young singer in early 1980s New Jersey on the brink of stardom. She is tall, willowy and black, frequently clad in shoulder pads and bright colors, first seen smoking a joint in her bedroom that her older brother warns will damage her voice – a voice which, we’re told, is once in a generation, though we never hear it. Beauty (Gracie Marie Bradley), as she’s oddly called, frequently sings, but the film layers background music or silence over her voice, keeping it at a remove. It’s a central void emblematic of a hollow film which has little to say about anyone or anything,...

“It’s All Coming Back to Me,” a romantic drama film starring and featuring the music of Celine Dion, will release in theaters on Feb. 10, 2023.

Formerly titled “Text for You,” “It’s All Coming Back to Me” is based on the 2016 German film “SMS für Dich” by Karoline Herfurth. The film stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas as a woman struggling to move on from the death of her fiancé. To cope, she begins sending messages to his old phone number, which has been reassigned to a new man, played by Sam Heughan. The two meet and develop a connection based on their shared heartbreak.

In addition to Jonas and Heughan, the film also stars Celine Dion as herself, in the role of a mentor figure who will inspire the two main characters to fall in love. The film is named after Jim Steinman’s power ballad “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,...

The Face of Another: Lemercier Normalizes Weird Choices in Bizarre Biopic

Like something novel born out of a 30 Rock satire, French actor/director Valérie Lemercier delivers the confounding Aline, a fictional account of a life inspired by internationally acclaimed chanteuse, Celine Dion. Kudos to Lemercier, who stars as the titular Quebecois wunderkind from the age of a small child to her Las Vegas residency, managing, against the odds, to create a piece of fan fiction which dares to lean into banality.

Once one gets beyond some odd moments which could have veered into either unmitigated camp territory or the essence of nightmares, Lemercier settles into a sobering account of an incredibly talented young woman who is groomed from childhood to be a singing sensation, only quietly emerging with a sense of self after the death of her (much older) husband/manager.…...

The face of five-year-old Aline looks weirdly mature and toothy as she crawls from under a table at a family wedding to belt out a song early in the film of the same name. French comedian and actress Valérie Lemercier, 58, wrote, directed and stars in Aline and it’s her head on a body altered by special effects in that scene. Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films open the “fiction freely inspired by the life of Céline Dion” in the U.S. this weekend.

Lemercier, a big star in France, won Best Actress at the César Awards in February for the film, where she lends the Canadian-born pop idol a Kristen Wiig-ish vibe. Aline premiered out of competition in Cannes last year. The U.S. release was pushed from an initial date in January.

The story follows Aline Dieu, the youngest of a hardworking, musical French-Canadian couple’s 14 children — a kind of bigger,...

In early 2022 a peculiar challenge took over TikTok that, since, has become one of its most emulated trends. Celebrities like Mandy Moore and Michael Bublé, non-famous people from all over the world, and even a pet or two have taken part in the “Céline Dion challenge,” wherein they are invited to lipsync the chorus of her 1996 hit “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” in the most dramatic fashion possible. Living rooms are transformed into dreamlike stages using easy-to-find props, women and men of all ages leaving behind their humdrum lives for a second as they reveal glittery outfits that turn them into global divas—all of course with the assistance of friends, lovers, and family members who act as stagehands and makeup / wardrobe assistants. Although the look of the challenge varies from post to post, they all share one thing: a profound sense of love and awe for...

There’s nothing as tired as the Hollywood biopic, but “Aline” is no conventional biopic. While the film makes no effort to hide that it is inspired by the life of Celine Dion, the greatest singer since Barbra Streisand and pride and joy of Quebec, there is a very thin layer of distance between the film’s events and Dion’s life. Though it can sometimes read like a Wikipedia entry, the effort by writer, director, and star Valérie Lemercier to fictionalize as much as possible can be chalked up to one thing — respect.

Renaming the singer Aline Dieu and playing the character herself, Lemercier grounds the larger-than-life diva with a down-home quirkiness that feels true to life, even if we don’t know how true it is.

“Aline” begins its rags-to-riches tale in the Quebec countryside, where a working class young couple falls in love over their shared love of music.

Let’s talk about love — and open secrets. Because both are at the heart of what makes Valérie Lemercier’s new film Aline such an oddity, if not quite the oddity that was promised. The New York Times, writing about the movie’s debut at Cannes last year, made Lemercier’s project out to be a curious spectacle: the kind of atypically un-self-serious fare that, through the boldness of its sheer strangeness, “somehow boomerangs back into auteurism.” Vanity Fair called the film “an utter shock.”

What’s more true is...

"Aline" is a movie all about a Canadian teenage singer named Aline Dieu who becomes a worldwide singing sensation. If that sounds a lot like Celine Dion's story, it's because the movie, written and directed by the French actress Valérie Lemercier, is a fictionalized dramatization of Dion's life starring Lemercier as the legendary singer and performer. "Aline" journeys through Dieu's life, from her early beginnings as a singer during her teenage years in Quebec to her international stardom throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Dion's voice is incredibly unique, and the biopic effortlessly highlights her vocal style and transformation through the film. The question is, is Lemercier really singing in "Aline"? The real singing voice behind Aline Dieu may surprise you!

Is Valérie Lemercier Really Singing Celine Dion's Songs in "Aline?"

While Valérie Lemercier does an incredible job embodying Dion's legacy, it is not actually her singing the songs in "Aline.