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The duo dazzle up front in screenwriter Florence Vignon’s first film – an Easy Tiger production set to be sold by Orange Studio – which begins filming tomorrow. The first clapperboard is set to slam tomorrow, Wednesday 31 March, on L’échappée belle, which will be the first film directed by screenwriter Florence Vignon (the winner of 2010’s Best Adapted Screenplay César for Mademoiselle Chambon and nominated for 2013’s Best Original Screenplay César via A Few Hours of Spring). Shining bright at the head of the cast is seasoned actor Jacques Gamblin and rising star Zita Hanrot (awarded 2016’s Best New Female Hope César for Fatima and...

The New York Film Festival has established itself as a haven for film purists, a place where the masters of cinema are treated like titans and auteurism supersedes all other other religions. In keeping with that spirit, the fest has always made sure to steer an uncommon (and greatly appreciated) degree of attention towards the history of the medium, complementing their roster of contemporary films with in-depth retrospectives and well-curated revival screenings.

Read More: Nyff Announces Retrospective Selections Inspired By Bertrand Tavernier’s ‘My Journey Through French Cinema’ – Exclusive

Nyff 54 is no exception. In fact, this year’s retrospective section offers two programs for the price of one — centering on director Bertrand Tavernier, the wonderfully expansive sidebar doesn’t just appreciate its subject as a filmmaker, but as a film thinker as well. Only showing one of Tavernier’s narrative features, the retrospective focuses instead on his unmissable new cinematic essay,...

The already-incredible line-up for the 2016 New York Film Festival just got even more promising. Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk will hold its world premiere at the festival on October 14th, the NY Times confirmed today. The adaptation of Ben Fountain‘s Iraq War novel, with a script by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), follows a teenage soldier who survives a battle in Iraq and then is brought home for a victory lap before returning.

Lee has shot the film at 120 frames per second in 4K and native 3D, giving it unprecedented clarity for a feature film, which also means the screening will be held in a relatively small 300-seat theater at AMC Lincoln Square, one of the few with the technology to present it that way. While it’s expected that this Lincoln Square theater will play the film when it arrives in theaters, it may be...

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the Retrospective section of the 54th New York Film Festival, an ambitious two-part lineup that is both headlined and directly inspired by Bertrand Tavernier’s documentary “My Journey Through French Cinema.” Nyff will screen Tavernier’s doc — which clocks in at a hefty and informative 190 minutes — along with a selection of French classics that feature prominently in the film. Additionally, Nyff will play home to a 12-film exploration of the films of Henry Hathaway, one of Tavernier’s favorite American directors. What follows is a feast of French cinema and a crash course in the works of Hathaway.

Read More: New York Film Festival Announces James Gray’s ‘The Lost City of Z’ As Closing Night Selection

Highlights of the “A Brief Journey Through French Cinema” section, as it’s being quite charmingly billed, include Jean Renoir’s revolutionary epic “La Marsellaise,...

Introduction

In Laissez-passer [Safe Conduct], the film that the French director Bertrand Tavernier made in 2002, we see the French film industry of the Occupation years as a ruined and almost shut-down institution that is highly dependent on the factor of chance. In his story, Tavernier exculpates one of the key figures of the occupation cinema, Henri-Georges Clouzot, from the accusation of collaborating with the Nazis. He pictures Clouzot as a man whose Jewish wife has been held hostage by the Nazis and, and against all odds, he finishes Le corbeau about the vicious and nasty people of a small town in France, where someone is sending poison pen letters to its "honourable" citizens. Le corbeau became a very popular box-office hit during the Occupation, and, at the same time, the underground press attacked it for showing France as a land of the degenerate and perverted people, a view that, according to accusers,...

According to a title card at the end of Laissez-Passer, Bertrand Tavernier's fact-based drama of the French film industry in wartime, Maurice Tourneur hated the scripts of the few movies he made post-wwii. So there's that.

But his last film, Impasse des Deux Anges (1948), fascinates. If the script has a flaw, it's that it takes a very simple, predictable story (actress runs away from groom the night before her marriage, with an old lover who's also a jewel thief—pursued through the night by gangsters, they conclude their relationship so she can move on) and attempts to reinvigorate it at regular intervals with dizzying tonal shifts, implausible new characters and sub-plots, and ghostly, somnambular flashbacks. But the flaw is also a strength, since it makes the film jazzy, offbeat and strange.

As the "two angels" (though the title really refers to a dead-end street where they made love in...

America has long held a fascination with serial killers, and now it looks like France is taking a turn with Blind Man, which Xavier Palud (Ils [Them], The Eye) is set to direct for Luc Besson's EuropaCorp, which also holds French distribution and international sales rights.

According to Variety Palud (pictured right) will be directing Lambert Wilson (Sahara, Of Gods and Men) and Jacques Gamblin (The First Day of the Rest of Your Life, Safe Conduct), both of whom are attached to star in the film, which was scripted by writer-director Eric Besnard (Ca$h) from an original idea by Besson.

Palud's third feature, which goes into production in early September in Paris, has Gamblin as a solitary cop investigating a cold case. He suspects that a blind man (Wilson) is the killer, sparking a battle of wits.

We're not sure if this one is more thriller or horror, but...

Music Box Films Presents

Michel Leclerc’s

The Names Of Love

(Le nom des gens)

*** César Awards 2011 – Winner – Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay ***

*** Col-Coa Film Festival 2011 – Official Selection ***

*** Cannes International Film Festival 2010 – Official Selection ***

Opening In Los Angeles And New York On June 24

Baya Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier), a young, extroverted liberal, lives by the old hippie slogan: “Make love, not war” to convert right-wing men to her left-wing political causes by sleeping with them. She seduces many and so far has received exceptional results – until she meets Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin), a Jewish middle aged, middle-of-the road scientist. Bound by common tragic family histories (the Algerian War and Holocaust under Vichy), the duo improbably fall in love. Amid the bubbly amour, humorous lasciviousness and moments of sheer madness, filmmaker Michel Leclerc injects satirical riffs on such hot-button sociopolitical issues as Arab-Jewish relations, anti-Semitism, immigration, and racial and cultural identity.

24 year-old...

"The finest Western you'll see this year is set in aristocratic 16th-century France, in the heat of Counter-Reformation," declares Nick Pinkerton. Segueing into his interview with Bertrand Tavernier, Aaron Hillis, also in the Voice, sums up the gist of The Princess of Montpensier: "Adapted from Madame de la Fayette's classic novel, the film concerns a nubile, wealthy heiress (Mélanie Thierry) who loves a rugged hothead from the wrong clan (Gaspard Ulliel), but is forced by her father to marry another prince (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), leaving her to dwell on the too-modern desire for free will — defiantly bucking against the rigid traditions of her breed." Back to Pinkerton: "The setting always serves the performers rather than vice versa — though the film is also greatly enhanced by the costuming, the rugged French countryside photographed in outdoor-adventure CinemaScope, and Philippe Sarde's baroque-tribal score, its martial and romantic poles matching a tale of...

With the addition of the following 26 titles (14 of which have been invited), the competition section is almost completed. You'll notice the kid with wings flick Ricky by Francois Ozon that we reported on earlier. Also having it's world premier is Mitchell Lichtenstein's (Teeth) newest film Happy Tears which sounds nothing it's predecessor (a genre piece) as it's a family drama.

You can check out the list after the break.

Competition (some out)

Cheri UK

By Stephen Frears (The Queen, Dangerous Liaisons)

With Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates, Rupert Friend, Felicity Jones

World premiere

Darbareye Elly (About Elly) Iran

By Asghar Farhadi (Fireworks Wednesday)

With Golshifteh Farahani, Taraneh Alidousti, Mani Haghighi

World premiere

Deutschland 09 Germany - Out of Competition

Compilation film by Fatih Akin, Tom Tykwer, Wolfgang Becker, Sylke Enders, Dominik Graf, Romuald Karmakar, Nicolette Krebitz, Isabelle Stever, Hans Steinbichler, Hans Weingartner, Christoph Hochhäusler, Dani Levy and Angela Schanelec

World...