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FrançoisScippa-Kohn’sDistrib Films has acquired US rights to French coming-of-age drama Block Pass (La Pampa), Antoine Chevrollier’s debut feature that first premiered at Cannes’ Critics’ Week.

Pulsar Content is handling international sales for the film that has sold some 154,000 tickets (and grossed approximately €1.1mn) since its February 5th release for local distributor Tandem.

The LGBTQ+ story focuses on the long friendship between two teenage boys in a small town – one a daredevil motocross competitor hiding a secret, and his friend and loyal sidekick who is mourning the death of his father. Sayyid El Alami and Amaury Foucher star as...

Pulsar Content has nabbed worldwide sales on “Two Women,” a Canadian sexy comedy which is slated to world premiere at Sundance.

Directed by Chloé Robichaud, “Two Women” is written by critically acclaimed playwright Catherine Léger based on her own play, “Home Deliveries,” which is itself a modern adaptation of Claude Fournier’s 1970 comedy “Two Women In Gold.”

“Two Women” follows neighbors Violette and Florence who are haunted by a sense of failure despite having successful careers and families. “What if happiness lies in rebelling against a rigid performance-driven society by sometimes choosing short-term satisfaction over success, freedom over being good? In a world where having fun is nowhere near the top of the priority list, having an adventure with the delivery guy can become revolutionary. For Violette and Florence this is the breath of fresh air they’ve been longing for,” reads the synopsis.

The cast is lead by Karine Gonthier-Hyndman,...

Exclusive: Pulsar Content has acquired world sales rights for Joséphine Japy’s upcoming feature The Wonderers following a family navigating the severe disability of the youngest daughter.

Produced by Cowboys Films, the feature marks Japy’s first time in the director’s chair.

The actress was recently seen in Netflix’s BAFTA-winning fictionalized Bernard Tapie biopic Class Act, with previous credits including On The Wandering Paths, Love At Second Sight, Breathe, as well as Claude François biopic My Way, early on in her career.

Set against the backdrop of a summer on the French riviera, the drama revolves around the Roussier family and its fragile equilibrium shaped by the uncertain diagnosis of its youngest daughter, 13-year-old Bertille, who suffers from a severe disability.

Her parents and 17-year-old older sister Marion live in constant fear of losing her. Disconnected from typical teenage dreams, Marion seeks escape in a relationship with an older boy.

Boris Lojkine’s The Story Of Souleymane and Sandhya Suri’s Santosh were among the winners of the 41st edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival this week.

The Story Of Souleymane won the best international film award in the International Competition. The jury praised “a film full of humanity, masterfully crafted, that never hits a false note.” Lojkine’s film, about a Paris food delivery cyclist preparing for his legal residency interview, debuted in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in May.

Scroll down for the full list of feature awards

Emanuel Parvu received the best director prize for Three Kilometers...

Boris Lojkine’s drama The Story Of Souleymane has won Best International Film at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

The feature, which was feted with the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in May, revolves around a young man rehearsing his lines ahead of an asylum application interview as he cycles around Paris delivering food.

Romania’s Emanuel Parvu won best director for Three Kilometers to the End of the World about a young gay man who is brutally attacked when he returns to his conservative village in the Danube Delta wetlands region for the summer.

The jury International Feature competition jury consisting of Michel Franco, Guy Nattiv and Maria Choustova also awarded Hu Guan’s Black Dog with a Special Mention.

UK-Indian director Sandhya Suri’s rape drama Santosh won Best Film in the First Feature Competition, with Block Pass by French director Antoine Chevrollier scoring a Special Mention.

Bedouin...

Antoine Chevrollier's debut feature Block Pass follows on the heels of a strong run in television for the writer/director, who created Oussekine - which considers the events that led to the death of a French-Algerian student at the hands of police - and helmed episodes of Baron Noir and The Bureau. Block Pass (La Pampa) focuses on the friendship between teenagers Willy (Sayyid El Alami) and Jojo (Amaury Foucher). Both have bonded over motocross, racing at a track founded by their fathers. Although Willy is still reeling from the death of his ten years afterwards, while Jojo comes under increasing pressure from his (Damien Bouchard). Chevrollier's film offers racing thrills and spills while also zeroing in on toxic masculinity, small-town prejudice and the pressure to conform to parental expectations. Block Pass had its premiere...

Will You Be My Ride or Die?: Chevrollier Ramps Up the Chaos in Portrait of Sons & Missing Fathers

Exploring themes of rebellion, shame, and unresolved anguish, La Pampa (aka Block Pass) delves into the profound challenges of articulating inner turmoil. This setup resembles Rebel Without a Cause, but with dirt bikes as the chosen mode of death-defying delinquency with daddy and in-the-closet issues to boot. Actors Sayyid El Alami and Amaury Foucher embody blood-brother dynamics in Antoine Chevrollier’s stagey, coming-of-age drama feature debut and while the film excels at portraying teenagers navigating an adult world, it sometimes fetiches the turmoil and silly wrong turns that the collective make.…...

Paris production house Agat Films – Ex Nihilo, which has six films in Cannes, is now in various stages of production on six more titles including Robert Guedigian’s drama Stealing Angel, starring Ariane Ascaride and Jean-Paul Darroussin that is in post. Playtime is handling sales.

Agat Films- Ex Nihilo are separate entities operating under the same banner. “We are a house of auteur cinema,” said producer Nicolas Blanc. “We are at the service of auteurs – we like what they think, what they say and how they say it.”

International titles in the works include Thierry Machado’s Inuit -language Yura,...

In the realm of dirt bike racing, the term “block pass” describes when you obstruct someone’s path with your bike and body, effectively standing in their way. It serves as a fitting metaphor for the portrayal of blood brothers grappling with the challenges of adulthood that surround them. Among the seven films chosen for this year’s Critics’ Week competition section, we get onto the muddy tracks and fragmented teenage-moving-into adulthood world in the debut feature of French filmmaker Antoine Chevrollier. In La Pampa, also known as Block Pass, young actors Sayyid El Alami and Amaury Foucher take the lead roles in a coming-of-age drama set in the muddy tracks of suburbia.…...

Paris-based international film sales company Pulsar Content has formed a strategic partnership with Digital District Entertainment, a leading post-production, VFX and production facilities company, with offices in France, Belgium and India. The partnership will create “a streamlined and cost-effective production process for international film projects,” according to a statement.

Pulsar Content’s Cannes lineup includes Un Certain Regard’s “Niki” by Céline Sallette, Antoine Chevrolliers’ “Block Pass,” premiering in Critics’ Week, and Camila Beltran’s “Mi Bestia,” premiering at Acid.

Dde’s Cannes lineup includes Julien Colonna’s “Le Royaume” in Un Certain Regard and Patricia Mazuy’s “Visiting Hours” in Directors’ Fortnight.

The companies have previously worked together on several films, including “The Deep House” by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, which sold to Blumhouse for the U.S. and Universal for international territories. They also teamed up on Edouard Salier’s “Tropic” and “Mads” by David Moreau.

Dde...

The Cannes Critics’ Week, the parallel film festival sidebar organized by the French film critics’ union, has unveiled its 2024 selection.

The psychological thriller Ghost Trail, the first feature from acclaimed French shorts director Jonathan Millet, will open the 2024 sidebar. Adam Bessa (star of 2022’s Un Certain Regard winner Harka) plays the lead in the manhunt drama about a man pursuing his former torturer, using only his sensory memories to guide him.

The competition lineup includes Brazilian drama Baby from director Marcelo Caetano, a portrait of a young outsider growing up in São Paulo; Constance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace, which looks at the lives of Chinese immigrants in Queens; and the Egyptian/French/Danish/Qatari/Saudi Arabian drama The Brink of Dreams about a group of girls from the disenfranchised Christian Copts who defy tradition and set up an all-female street theater troupe.

Baby

Other competition titles include Antoine Chevrollier’s Block Pass,...