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Apple TV+ has set its latest French original: six-part thriller A L’ombre des Forêts.

Cannes Best Actor and three-time César Best Actor winner Benoît Magimel and two-time César winner Mélanie Laurent have landed the leading roles. Cédric Anger (Next Time I’ll Aim For the Heart) is the creator and director and executive producers are Isabelle Degeorges and Christophe Riandee for Gaumont, which makes Netflix’s Lupin.

A L’ombre des Forêts is set around an incident that changes a man’s life. Franck (Magimel) and his long-time friends spend their weekends hunting together, but one Sunday encounter another group, who start targeting them without explanation. When one of their party is shot, Franck’s friends strike back. Barely managing to escape, the four friends decide to keep the event a secret. Franck tries to go back to his life as usual alongside his wife Krystel (Laurent...

The Wages of Fear is a French film directed by Julien Leclercq starring Franck Gastambide and Ana Girardot.

“The Wages of Fear” is a film based on Georges Arnaud’s novel, which, as you may already know, had a previous adaptation in 1953, directed by H.G. Clouzot. This has become a classic of French cinema and one of the best thrillers in film history.

In these current times, Julien Leclercq dares to create a new version of this story, modernizing it entirely and trying to maintain the character tension in this updated plot, although we’re not fully sure if it’s for the better.

It’s always a risk to compare yourself to a classic, but Julien Leclercq has the courage to try it.

Plot

To save a village during an oil extraction, four people must escort a convoy loaded with nitroglycerin in a desolate place, surrounded by armed gangs.

Grégoire Hetzel: "Joy is difficult to translate." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The composer for Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days (Trois Souvenirs De Ma Jeunesse), A Christmas Tale (Un Conte De Noël); Kings & Queen (Rois Et Reine); La Forêt and The Beloved (L'Aimée), Mathieu Amalric's The Blue Room (La Chambre Bleue), Cédric Anger's Next Time I'll Aim For the Heart (La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Coeur), and Renaud Fely's L'Ami (François D'Assise Et Ses Frères) spoke with me about scoring Catherine Corsini's Summertime (La Belle Saison) starring Izïa Higelin and Cécile de France and Anne Fontaine's The Innocents (Agnus Dei).

Delphine (Izïa Higelin) in Paris

Grégoire Hetzel, who previously worked with Corsini on Les Ambitieux and Three Worlds (Trois Mondes) points out the similarity between her joy and Anne Fontaine's religion in our conversation high above Central Park.

The love story in Summertime...

Grégoire Hetzel with Anne-Katrin Titze: "It's like Bernard Herrmann or Ravel." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Grégoire Hetzel scored Mathieu Amalric's chronicle of fluid crime The Blue Room (La Chambre Bleue) and César winning director Arnaud Desplechin's mythical braid of adventure My Golden Days (Trois Souvenirs De Ma Jeunesse), A Christmas Tale (Un Conte De Noël); Kings & Queen (Rois Et Reine); La Forêt and The Beloved (L'Aimée).

Grégoire recently worked on Cédric Anger's Next Time I'll Aim For The Heart (La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Coeur); Anne Fontaine's The Innocents (Agnus Dei); Renaud Fely's L'Ami (François D'Assise Et Ses Frères), Mathieu Demy's Americano and Catherine Corsini's Summertime (La Belle Saison), which he presented at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York.

Arnaud Desplechin: "In Arnaud's films the music is always underscored …" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Gilles Deleuze, Bernard Herrmann and Maurice Ravel eventually reverberated...

Adèle Haenel and Guillaume Canet in André Téchiné's In The Name Of My Daughter

Next Time I’ll Aim For The Heart (La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Coeur) director Cédric Anger was the co-screenwriter for André Téchiné's casino family thriller In The Name Of My Daughter, aka French Riviera (L’Homme Qu’on Aimait Trop). In both films he returns to the Seventies and to real-life murder cases with Guillaume Canet as the male lead and in both, possibly aided by the costumes he is wearing and the period haircuts, Canet looks strikingly like François Truffaut, which makes for an interesting obstacle to overcome in performance. And overcome it he does.

A dignified Catherine Deneuve as Renée Le Roux runs a casino in Nice that the criminal element has its eyes on in In The Name Of My Daughter. Guillaume Canet is the hieroglyphic lawyer Maurice Agnelet...

Guillaume Canet with Next Time I’ll Aim For The Heart (La Prochaine fois je viserai le coeur) director Cédric Anger Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Cédric Anger wrote two of the films in the 20th Anniversary of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York, both starring Guillaume Canet. Next Time I’ll Aim For The Heart (La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Coeur), he also directed, and André Téchiné's In The Name of My Daughter, aka French Riviera (L’Homme Qqu’on Aimait Trop), co-stars Adèle Haenel and Catherine Deneuve. Both films take place in the Seventies.

Guillaume Canet as gendarme Franck Neuhart: "He is not the same guy in daylight. He is a man of the night."

Next Time I’ll Aim For The Heart is neither a crime thriller, nor a horror movie, although it is about a serial killer and resembles F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (Nosferatu, Eine...

Catherine Deneuve and Guillaume Canet in André Téchiné's In the Name of My Daughter (L’Homme Qu’on Aimait Trop), also starring Adèle Haenel

This year's Rendez-Vous with French Cinema opens with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chiara Mastroianni and Benoît Poelvoorde in Benoît Jacquot's 3 Hearts (3 Coeurs). Quentin Dupieux's Reality (Réalité) starring Alain Chabat, featuring Philip Glass’s Music With Changing Parts closes the festival.

There are first-rate performances from Mathieu Kassovitz and Céline Sallette (who also stars with Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche and Benoît Magimel in Cédric Jimenez' The Connection (La French)) in Cédric Kahn's Wild Life (Vie Sauvage), Guillaume Canet in Cédric Anger's Next Time I’ll Aim For The Heart (La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Coeur), Olivier Gourmet and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi in Stéphane Demoustier's 40-Love (Terre Battue), Adèle Haenel with Kévin Azaïs in Thomas Cailley's Love At First Fight (Les Combattants...

It was a battle of Yves Saint Laurent biopics at the Césars (the French Oscars, if you will) this year as both the French foreign language Oscar submission "Saint Laurent" (leader of the pack with 10 nods) and "Yves Saint Laurent" picked up a ton of mentions. Oscar players that popped up include "Two Days, One Night" star Marion Cotillard and animated feature "Song of the Sea." Foreign film Oscar nominee "Timbuktu" also had a major showing. And of course, in the Césars' foreign category, films like "Boyhood," "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and "12 Years a Slave" are duking it out. Check out the full list of nominees below, and remember to keep track of it all at The Circuit. Best Film "Les Combattants" "Eastern Boys" "La Famille Bélier" "Saint Laurent" "Hippocrate" "Sils Maria" "Timbuktu" Best Director Céline Sciamma, "Bande De Filles" Thomas Cailley, "Les Combattants" Robin Campillo, "Eastern Boys" Thomas Lilti,...

Update, 2:25 Am Pt: Last year’s dueling Yves Saint Laurent biopics each picked up several nominations this morning for France’s César Awards. Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent, the country’s entry for the Foreign Language Oscar, leads the pack with 10 mentions, followed by Thomas Cailley’s Directors’ Fortnight title Les Combattants with nine, and Oscar nominee Timbuktu with eight. Yves Saint Laurent, from helmer Jalil Lespert, took seven nods. Otherwise, there are a number of usual suspects in the batch including Best Actress Oscar nominee Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night, as well as Juliette Binoche for Olivier Assayas’ Sils Maria. In something of a departure — and a first — for the French Académie, they nominated American actress Kristen Stewart for her supporting turn in that Cannes competition entry. (Adrien Brody won the Best Actor prize in 2003 for The Pianist.) There are also six nominations for late 2014 release La Famille Bélier.

Update, Tuesday, 4:02 Am Pt: A couple of things have happened in the world of international box office since late Sunday night. We now know that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I will not be bowing in China in the 2014 calendar year, and we have a little more insight into why Korea is like the proverbial black hole for Interstellar (in the good sense). Exerting an incredible gravitational pull, Korea has advanced itself as a massive $35.9M play (so far) for Christopher Nolan’s intergalactic epic. Here’s why: There is a very strong and vocal Nolan fanbase in Korea, which has generated astronomical word of mouth in the market. I’m told there were a few midnight screenings the night before the opening on November 6, and online buzz began building immediately. The not-so-spacey elements have also played very well, with the emotional and family sub-plots broadening appeal. Worth...

Update, 12:30 Pm: Intersellar continued to rock it in China on Thursday, with Warner Bros reporting it grossed $5M on the day after opening on Wednesday with $5.4M on 7,742 screens. That Day One lift-off gave director Christopher Nolan his biggest opening in the market to date.

Warners said the sci-fi pic has more than 60% of the top-five market share and is outpacing Nolan’s Inception (by 144%) and last year’s Gravity (by 10%) heading into the weekend.

Overall, Interstellar grossed $14.1M in overseas territories Thursday, led by strong showings in Korea and the UK, to bring its international cume to $135.5M.

Previous, Thursday, 11:09 Pm: Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar nabbed one of the final Hollywood slots in China this year, bowing on Wednesday in the Middle Kingdom. Warner Bros is reporting a Day One $5.4M lift-off for the sci-fi space oddysey there. After an $89.2M international weekend in its debut frame,...

Name and focus changes for every section, which are now all competitive, resulting in the festival’s structure being “slimmer’.

The ninth Rome Film Festival (Oct 16-25) has revealed a diverse line-up including the Italian premieres for potential awards contenders including David Fincher’s Gone Girl. the world premiere of Takashi Miike’s As the Gods Will and Burhan Qurbani’s We are Young, We are Strong and European premiere of Oren Moverman’s Time Out of Mind, Toronto hit Still Alice and Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.

This year for the first time the award-winners in each section of the programme will be decided by the audience on the basis of votes cast after the screenings.

Each section has changed name and focus for 2014 and are all competitive, resulting in the festival’s structure being “slimmer’.

Italian comedies Soap Opera and Andiamo a Quel Paese bookend the line-up.

Full line-up

Cinema D’Oggi

World premiere

• Angely...