Goodfellas Boards Sales On Gaël Morel’s Cannes-Bound AIDS Drama ‘To Live, To Die, To Live Again’

CANNES – You have to give Jacques Audiard credit. The famed French filmmaker has proven time and time again he isn’t afraid to take big swings.

EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has acquired world sales rights for Japanese filmmaker Chie Hayakawa’s Tokyo-set drama Renoir ahead of the project’s presentation in the Investors Circle event at the Cannes Marché du Film on Sunday.

Filmmaker Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” horror had been under wraps for some time. Described as a body horror seen through a feminist lens, for months, all the French writer/director has said about the movie was that it would “push boundaries with a different kind of violence.” But if the Cannes Film Festival synopsis wasn’t already self-evident, the newly released teaser for “The Substance” basically gives up the ghost.

Rithy Panh has dedicated the lion’s share of his career to interrogating the genocidal Khmer Rouge era in his native Cambodia, and it is no trivial obsession. Panh fled Phnom Penh when he was just 11, and after his family was devastated in the Killing Fields, he escaped to a Thai refugee camp at 15. Now 60, Panh has been committed to keeping the memory of the impact of Pol Pot’s tyrannical regime alive in documentary, narrative and animated film.

“Mommie Dearest” actress walked the red carpet at the premiere of the action film “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” starring Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy. She was joined by Laurent Bouzereau, 62, who is the director of her new documentary that is premiering at Cannes, and her son Liam Dunaway O’Neill, 43, who appears in the HBO doc.The Hollywood icon wore a black blazer over a white shirt with black pants.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Bureau Sales has teamed with French production banner Paprika and filmmaker Vincent Munier on “Whispering in the Woods,” a documentary that will be teased to buyers at the Cannes Film Market. “Whispering in the Woods” marks Munier’s follow-up to “The Velvet Queen” (co-directed by Marie Amiguet), a critically acclaimed documentary that competed for a Golden Eye Award at the Cannes Film Festival and won a Cesar prize in 2022. The doc is currently filming across different locations, from the Vosges mountains to Tibet, and is expected to be delivered by next spring.

Jamie Lang Catalan films routinely punch above their weight at high-profile international festivals: Think 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs.” That trend looks primed to continue in 2024. Catalan auteur Albert Serra will debut “Afternoons of Solitude,” co-produced by Catalan companies Andergraun Films and LaCima, with Ideale Audience and Tardes de Soledad.

Ben Croll Shortly before last year’s Cannes Film Festival, director Sophie Fillières attended a cast and crew screening of “Anatomy of a Fall.” The filmmaker had a supporting role in the film, playing the deceased’s sister, and she soon celebrated her work’s Palme d’Or win from afar, hanging back in Paris, where she was preparing to shoot her seventh feature, “This Life of Mine.” The five-week production kicked off in late June, running smoothly and wrapping on the last day of July. The next day, Fillières checked into the hospital; in less than a month, she was gone.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Asterix,” the popular French comics franchise, is set for a new animated journey. Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patelliere, whose latest film “The Count of Monte-Cristo” is premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, have penned “Asterix, the Kingdom of Nubia.” SND, the commercial arm of French network M6, has boarded the film and will kick off international sales at the Cannes Film Market, where they will present a sizzle reel to buyers.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has left Iran and traveled to Europe clandestinely after being sentenced to eight years in prison by the country’s authorities, who pressured him to pull his latest work “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” from the Cannes Film Festival and harassed the film’s producers and actors. “We are very happy and much relieved that Mohammad has safely arrived in Europe after a dangerous journey,” said Jean-Christophe Simon, CEO of Films Boutique and Parallel45, who are distributing the film.

EXCLUSIVE: Francis Ford Coppola‘s Megalopolis has sold to key independent buyers in Europe’s top five territories, we can reveal.

Cannes Critics’ Week has appointed French producer Sylvie Pialat as president of the jury for its upcoming edition after Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen, who was originally announced for the role, was forced to cancel for personal reasons.

EXCLUSIVE: Newly launched Dubai-based sales company MAD World has acquired worldwide rights to Egyptian director Morad Mostafa’s Aisha Can’t Fly Away, a tense African migrant drama shooting later this year in Egypt.

Cannes Film Festival sprinting from lunches to drinks to dinners, as she meets with potential distributors, financiers and filmmakers. Most nights, the Palisades Park CEO hosts a cocktail hour at the company’s temporary headquarters directly across from the Palais des Festivals, where Cannes’ biggest premieres are held. “We are looking to dazzle people,” she says, noting that her office boasts a commanding view of the red carpet.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent One day after the “Sous les écrans la dèche” collective, made up of freelance festival workers, issued a call for a strike during the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, organizers have issued a joint statement where they encouraged all parties to “come together around the bargaining table.” The statement, signed by the Cannes Film Festival as well as parallel sections Directors’ Fortnight, Critics’ Week and ACID, said they acknowledge the “difficulties faced by some of their staff” due to a reform of the “French unemployment insurance scheme,” and that they “hope that solutions will be found.” The organization is protesting against a looming labor reform that will see their unemployment indemnities slashed by more than half. The org brings together hundreds of workers at festivals, from projectionists to drivers and caterers, who are threatening to strike during Cannes which could potentially cause major disruptions.

One of cinema’s living legends, at 85 years old, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now”) has finally made “Megalopolis,” an ambitious sci-fi epic he’s been dreaming of making since the 1980s. With the film set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival later this month, in a matter of days, French distributor Le Pacte has released the first look teaser of the movie.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Indie Sales has acquired Japanese director Momoko Seto’s “Dandelion’s Odyssey,” an ecological fable animated by Guionne Leroy (“Toy Story”) and scored by Nicolas Becker (“Sound of Metal”) and Quentin Sirjacq. Shot from Japan to Iceland, “Dandelion’s Odyssey” is an adventure set in a dystopian world and is reminiscent of “Microcosmos,” with plants and animals as the main characters. The feature boasts a mix of timelapse photography, as well as live-action shooting and 3D animation.

Princ Films boards ‘Isabel’s Garden’ For Cannes Marche Du Film 

So many stars travelled to Marseille, France to attend the Chanel Cruise 2024-2025 fashion show this week.

One of the year’s most anticipated films will be on sale for independent buyers at the upcoming Cannes market. We can bring you news that French sales company Goodfellas has boarded Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis ahead of the movie’s world premiere in Competition at the festival.