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Following a premiere at Toronto International Film Festival last fall, a new international trailer has arrived for writer-director Arnaud des Pallières‘ latest drama Orpheline (which translates to Orphan). While the trailer is in French (making certain key plot elements a bit cloudy), one need not read subtitles when there are flashing neon lights, money smuggling, race-track gambling, and police raids.

The revolves around Sandra through multiple stages of her life (the eldest of which is played by Adèle Exarchopoulos) as she tumbles through a life of trouble and potential romance (with Gemma Arterton). See the trailer below, for the film that also stars Adèle Haenel (the lead of the Dardennes’ latest film The Unknown Girl), Sergi López and Nicolas Duvauchelle.

Tiff synopsis:

Arnaud des Pallières’ unique talent, evident in his wildly different first two feature films, shifts yet again for this ambitious, fractured narrative about a woman at various stages of her life.

The 15th Mumbai Film Festival (Mff) presented by Reliance Entertainment and organized by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (Mami) scheduled between 17th-24th October is all set to showcase the best of contemporary French cinema and welcome artists for the 6th edition of the Rendez-vous with French Cinema co-organized with The French Embassy in India, Institut Français en Inde and Unifrance films.

As part of the festival highlights, Costa Gavras will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award during the opening ceremony in the presence of His Excellency Mr François Richier, Ambassador of France to India who will grace us with his presence especially for this occasion. Among others, Nathalie Baye, jury member of the international section, Mahamat Saleh Haroun, director of the film “Grigris”, Guillaume Brac, director of the film “Tonnerre” (Competition) and Leos Carax, well known film maker who will be conducting a masters class.

The special section “Rendez-vous...

In competition at the 66th Cannes Film Festival, French director Arnaud des Pallières' Michael Kohlhaas is a 16th century revenge drama featuring a strong European cast including the likes of Bruno Ganz (Downfall) and Denis Lavant - star of Leos Carax's refreshingly bonkers 2012 Palme d'Or contender Holy Motors. However, it's Danish man of the moment Mads Mikkelsen who will no doubt be the main attraction here. Last seen at Cannes with Thomas Vintenberg's Jagten (The Hunt, 2012) and currently starring in the NBC TV drama Hannibal as everyone's favourite cannibal, Doctor Lecter, Mikkelsen has repeatedly proved himself both a versatile actor and a powerful screen presence.

Michael Kohlhaas

The aforementioned Mikkelsen plays the title role of horse-dealer Kohlhaas who, when wronged by a local lord, raises an army and seeks his revenge, spreading violence and fire across the land. The film is part-scripted and directed by Frenchman des Pallières,...

Generally you can find plenty of information about your favorite stateside filmmaker, and depending on who they are (see: David Gordon Green), you can find a long list of potential upcoming projects to investigate. But being head-over-heels for a foreign director is a different story -- without the Hollywood system or independent film cliques to generate word of mouth or gossip, you can spend years without hearing a peep from even the biggest festival sweethearts, and only last week were were discussing around the Playlist water cooler where some of our favorite international filmmakers had gone in the last few years.

As we were pondering the status of these auteurs, good news hit the trades: Arnaud Desplechin's adaptation of Georges Devereux's "Psychotherapy Of A Plains Indian" found a star in Benicio Del Toro and would be shooting June 18th in Michigan. Titled "Jimmy Picard," Del Toro would play the...

The Toronto International Film Festival has announced a whole load of films, including many world premiers, to be added as part of their lineups. Some of the more interesting looking ones are Lance Daly's Kisses about two Irish kids who run away from home and deal with the dark underside of Dublin. Another film I'm definitely interested in is Scott McGehee and David Siegel's Uncertainty which stars one of my personal favorites, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's about a couple in love who find out she's pregnant and they flip a coin from where it apparently follows both possible storylines, but with the same disastrous consequences. Also screening will be Fabrice du Welz's Vinyan (trailer here) which is about a couple who lost their son in a Tsunami and won't give up looking for him. In the Discovery program, the stop-motion animation $9.99 which is about a man seeking the meaning to life.