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Exclusive: French director Jean-Bernard Marlin made waves in Cannes Critics’ Week in 2018 with Marseille-set feature debut Shéhérazade about the relationship between a young prostitute and an underage ex-convict who becomes her pimp.

The film went on to win best first film alongside most promising actress and actor for Kenza Fortas and Dylan Robert at the 2019 edition of France’s César awards.

Marlin returns to Cannes this year with his second feature Salem which world premieres in Un Certain Regard.

Like Shéhérazade, the feature captures the reality of Marseille’s notoriously crime and poverty-ridden northern quarters with a documentary approach but differs in that Marlin has added a layer of fantasy to the tale.

“I don’t invent anything in what I am showing, but at the same time, this film is a work of the imagination. It’s an allegory, with dreamlike and fantasy qualities,” says Marlin.

The film follows...

The Cannes Film Festival has added Jean-Bernard Marlin’s Marseille second feature Salem to its Un Certain Regard line-up devoted to new cinematic voices.

The Marseille gangland-set fantasy follows a former gang member who believes his daughter is the only one who can save his community from an apocalyptic curse uttered by a rival gang member in his dying breath.

Salem is Marlin’s second feature after the gritty romance Shéhérazade which debuted in Cannes Critics’ Week in 2018.

Also set against the backdrop of Marseille, the film won best first film in France’s 2019 César awards as well as most promising Actress and Actor for its big screen debutants Kenza Fortas and Dylan Robert.

The film is co-produced by Bruno Nahon’s Unité and Vatos Locos Productions, Marlin’s company with Romain Daubeach and Marine Bergère, with international sales handled by Goodfellas.

The Un Certain Regard section now features 20 titles in total,...

New feature from the director of ‘Sheherazade’ added to Un Certain Regard strand.

US actor John C. Reilly will preside over the jury for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, which has added Salem by Cesar award-winning French director Jean-Bernard Marlin to its line-up.

Alongside Reilly on the five-person jury are French director and screenwriter Alice Winocour, German actress Paula Beer, French-Cambodian director and producer Davy Chou and Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne.

Reilly made his film debut in Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War in 1989 by Brian De Palma and played roles in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line,...

Exclusive: Paris-based sales powerhouse Wild Bunch International (Wbi) has unveiled the bulk of its French slate for the first half of 2023 as it gears up for the Unifrance Rendez-vous in Paris, running January 10-17.

New titles on the slate include Jean-Bernard Marlin’s Marseille gangland-set fantasy Salem about a former gang member who believes his daughter is the only one who can save his community from an apocalyptic curse uttered by a rival gang member in his dying breath.

Salem is Marlin’s second feature after the gritty romance Shéhérazade. That drama, also set against the backdrop of Marseille

, debuted in Cannes in 2018 and went on to win best first film in France’s 2019 César awards as well as most promising actress and actor for its big screen debutants Kenza Fortas and Dylan Robert.

The new film, which is currently in post-production, is co-produced by Bruno Nahon’s Unité and Vatos Locos Productions,...

Last week we got the first set of titles that will (for the most part) premiere at the 2022 San Sebastián International Film Festival. Earlier today, the Donostia folks lassoed thirteen films for their New Directors section. They include projects that we’ve been keeping an eye out on for a good stretch including Laura Baumeister‘s Daughter of Rage – a social issue drama that has taken its sweet time in post (there might be some Efx elements). We also find Dinara Drukarova‘s Le Grand Marin – which was co-wrote with Raphaëlle Desplechin and sees Drukarova, Dylan Robert, Antonythasan Jesuthasan and Sam Louwyck in the book to film project set in Iceland.…...

Netflix has acquired the French drama “DNA,” the latest film from actress and filmmaker Maïwenn in which she also stars and explores her Algerian family heritage.

Netflix picked up the English-language rights for the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Middle East. Le Pacte has acquired the film for French audiences and will release the movie theatrically on October 28. Wild Bunch International is also handling sales rights has already secured several international territories.

“DNA” (or its French title “Adn”) was an official selection of the canceled 2020 Cannes Film Festival, and it finally made its world premiere at the Deauville American Film Festival. Here’s the synopsis:

“DNA” follows Neige, a divorced mother of three, who regularly visits her Algerian grandfather in the nursing home where he lives. She loves and respects this pillar of the family who raised her and, above all, protected her from toxic parents.

Marseille reaffirms its status as one of the most dangerous cities in France with “Shéhérazade,” director Jean-Bernard Marlin’s accomplished feature debut. But its reputation for crime and poverty makes all the more affecting the tentative relationship between a troubled 17-year-old boy just sprung from juvenile detention and the title character, the teenage prostitute he falls in love with. Shooting in a color-streaked vérité style and coaxing terrific performances from his non-pro cast, Marlin clearly has a promising future ahead. What keeps ‘Shéhérazade’ from ranking higher in the pantheon of streetwise French crime dramas is the story’s overall familiarity. But the question of whether the love between two lost teenagers can survive such a miserable environment provides more than enough emotional pull, provided that audiences can find this 2018 Cannes Film Festival gem on Netflix.

“Shéhérazade” is a feature-length riff on Marlin’s similarly Marseille-set “La Fugue” (aka “The Runaway...