Screen presents a selection of the buzziest projects from France available to international buyers at this year’s Cannes market.
Ablaze
Dir. Thomas Kruithof
Ablaze stars César-winning actors Virginie Efira and Arieh Worthalter as a couple whose lives are upended when one takes part in a political revolt. It is produced by Thibault Gast and Matthias Weber’s Mediawan-owned 24 25 Films. Kruithof’s Promises starring Isabelle Huppert premiered in Venice in 2021.
Contact: Adeline Fontan Tessaur, Elle Driver
Badh
Dir. Guillaume de Fontenay
M.E.S. Productions and Monkey Pack Films, the producers of Coralie Fargeat’s debut feature Revenge, are behind this ambitious Morocco-set action thriller. Marine Vacth stars as an assassin who sets out to save her husband, with the producers promising motorcycle chases, high-octane pursuits and beautiful vistas along the way.
Contact: Gregory Chambet, WTFilms; Valérie Tailland, Ginger & Fed
Beware Of The Dog
Dir. Thomas Lilti
Lilti’s last film A Real Job premiered at San Sebastian in 2023 and his hit Canal+ series Hippocrate is already on its third season. The director’s next feature is headlined by a starry cast including Francois Civil, Léa Drucker and Karim Leklou, and centres on a man frustrated with his life who bonds with a rescue dog as he goes back to school and tries to reinvent himself.
Contact: Romain Rancurel, Le Pacte
Chopin, A Sonata In Paris
Dir. Michal Kwiecinski
This big-budget Polish film shot in France and centres on the famous composer and pianist along with his escapades in Paris at the start of the 19th century as he sets out to revolutionise music. Eryk Kulm, who won best actor at last year’s Polish Film Awards for Filip, stars as Chopin opposite Lambert Wilson and Victor Meutelet. The Polish- and French-language film is produced by Akson Studio.
Contact: Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, Playtime
Dracula
Dir. Radu Jude
Romanian filmmaker Jude returns with Dracula, his unique spin on the famed vampire tale. The offbeat comedy drama shot and is set in Transylvania and will explore the legend of Dracula through alternative lenses, whether it be absurd, political, literary or theatrical interpretations. The director has also said the film is about cinema itself. Dracula follows Kontinental ’25, which premiered in Competition at the Berlinale in February and won the Silver Bear for best screenplay.
Contact: Jennyfer Gautier, Luxbox
Dumas: Black Devil
Dir. Ladj Ly
Srab Films, the producer of Oscar-nominated Les Misérables, and Mediawan-owned producer Chapter 2 (The Count Of Monte-Cristo) come together for this mega-budget project, set to kick off production in 2026. Théo Christine will play the titular hero in this adventure epic about the father of Alexandre Dumas, who was the son of a slave and French noble and defied the odds to become the first Black general in the French army. Omar Sy, Vincent Cassel and Francois Civil also star.
Contact: Marie-Laure Montironi, Pathé (international); CAA Media Finance (North America)
If War Comes
Dir. John Skoog
Skoog’s debut feature stars French actor Denis Lavant, who learned Swedish for his role as a farm worker who compulsively transforms his house into a fortress to protect himself and his neighbours from a possible enemy attack after seeing powerful images in a pamphlet entitled ‘If The War Comes’. It is produced by Sweden’s Plattform Produktion of Ruben Östlund’s Triangle Of Sadness and The Square, and upcoming The Entertainment System Is Down.
Contact: Coproduction Office
Into The Blue
Dir. Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar
Based on the book I Decided To Live by para-athlete Philippe Croizon, this true story is about a man severely disabled after an accident who overcomes huge obstacles to swim across the English Channel and find joy again. The film stars paralympic athlete Pierre Rabine along with Sandrine Bonnaire, Zinedine Soualem, Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux and Pierre Deladonchamps. Mention-Schaar’s credits include Divertimento, Heaven Will Wait and Once In A Lifetime.
Contact: Valerie Tailland, Ginger & Fed
Karma
Dir. Guillaume Canet
Canet’s psychological thriller stars his Oscar-winning wife Marion Cotillard, Denis Ménochet and Leonardo Sbaraglia. Plot details are under wraps but it is shooting for a 2026 delivery. Canet’s previous films as a director include the 2006 thriller Tell No One and the 2010 comedy drama Little White Lies and its sequel. French banner Iconoclast and Canet’s Caneo are producing.
Contact: Marie-Laure Montironi, Pathé
Les Misérables
Dir. Fred Cavayé
Cavayé has assembled an A-list French cast for his anticipated adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic 1862 novel, starring Vincent Lindon as hardened convict turned loving father Jean Valjean. Tahar Rahim, Camille Cottin, Benjamin Lavernhe, Noémie Merlant, Vassili Schneider, Megan Northam, Marie Colomb and Sayyid El Alami have also been confirmed for the film, which hails from powerhouse producers Richard Grandpierre (Eskwad) and Olivier Delbosc (Curiosa Films). The shoot is set for Paris and Bordeaux.
Contact: Margaux Audouin, Studiocanal
Mata
Dir. Rachel Lang
Mélanie Laurent, Eye Haïdara, Raphaël Personnaz and Joséphine Japy head this spy thriller, the third from the director of Our Men, which played Directors’ Fortnight in 2021, and Baden Baden (2016). It follows a French secret agent, haunted by the capture of her former colleague, who heads from a mission in Africa to the Alps and embarks on a race against time to find out what her higher-ups are hiding. Mata is produced by France’s Nolita and Chevaldeuxtrois, and Warner Bros will distribute in France.
Contact: Constance Poubelle, Indie Sales
Murder In The Building
Dir. Rémi Bezancon
The latest from writer/director Bezancon features a high-profile French cast including Gilles Lellouche, Laetitia Casta and Guillaume Gallienne. It is about a Hitchcock movie buff and her husband, a famous author of thrillers, who suspect their new neighbour of killing his wife and launch a risky investigation. It is shooting now and produced by Jerico, which was behind La Famille Belier, the original French film on which Oscar winner Coda is based.
Contact: Ramy Nahas, SND
Nobody’s Son
Dir. Safy Nebbou
This big-budget French drama from Playtime’s production arm and Mandarin was shot and is set in Thailand. Romain Duris stars as a man whose wife’s sudden death leaves him alone with the four-year-old they just adopted, prompting him to take the child on a healing journey in search of her roots. Sony Pictures International has already snapped up rights for the US, Canada, South America and France. Nebbou’s last feature, Who You Think I Am starring Juliette Binoche, premiered in Berlin in 2019.
Contact: Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, Playtime
Parallel Tales
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
The Iranian director has assembled a starry French cast that includes Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Vincent Cassel, Catherine Deneuve, Pierre Niney and Adam Bessa, for a feature set to shoot in Paris later this year. The France-Italy-Belgium co-production also brings together powerhouse production companies Memento Production, Lucky Red, Panache Productions and La Compagnie Cinématographique, with Anonymous Content in the US co-producing. The plot is under wraps for what will be the two-time Cannes winner’s tenth feature.
Contact: Charades (international); UTA Independent Film Group (North America)
Popemobile
Dir. Sylvain Estibal
This timely comedy starring French comic actor Kad Merad is about a newly elected pope preparing for a tour of Latin America, only to find out the Vatican is bankrupt. A wealthy Mexican woman offers to help, but she turns out to be a drug trafficker and he sends a lookalike in his place to Mexico’s capital of crime.
Contact: Clementine Hugot, The Bureau Sales
The Revolution According To Kamo
Dir. Kornel Mundruczo
Hungarian filmmaker Mundruczo brings this historical drama about two boys, one who became Bolshevik revolutionary Kamo and the other dictator Joseph Stalin. The gangster-style epic is penned by Oscar-winning director Pawel Pawlikowski. Among the producers are Mike Goodridge (Good Chaos), Ilya Stewart (Hype Studios), Santosh producer Balthazar de Ganay, Tanya Seghatchian (Apocalypso Pictures) and Pawlikowski.
Contact: mk2 Films
Salvation
Dir. Emin Alper
Turkish filmmaker Alper follows his 2022 Un Certain Regard premiere Burning Days with a film set in a remote Kurdish village. It tracks the return of an exiled clan that reignites a decades-old land dispute as two brothers lead their village into a brutal struggle with their neighbours.
Contact: Ola Byszuk, Lucky Number
The Stranger
Dir. Francois Ozon
Ozon reteams with his Summer Of ’85 breakout Benjamin Voisin as a Frenchman living in 1930s Algeria, whose indifference to the surrounding world culminates in cold-blooded murder and a trial that explores both the crime and his character. Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Swann Arlaud and Denis Lavant round out the starry French cast. It is shooting in Morocco with expected delivery in 2026.
Contact: Alexis Cassanet, Gaumont
True-ish
Dir. Goran Stolevski
Sandra Hüller and Colman Domingo headline this satirical drama from Macedonian Australian filmmaker Stolevski, whose Housekeeper For Beginners won the Queer Lion at Venice in 2023 and Sundance-premiere debut You Won’t Be Alone (2022) was Australia’s submission to the Oscars. True-ish is about a Manhattan PR executive who relocates to the Balkans and gets embroiled in fake news campaigns to target political regimes, with serious consequences.
Contact: Charades; Katarzyna Siniarska, New Europe Film Sales (both international); UTA Independent Film Group, WME Independent (both North America)
The Unknown
Dir. Arthur Harari
Anatomy Of A Fall’s Oscar-winning co-writer is back behind the camera for this body swap mystery, his third feature after 2016 debut Dark Inclusion and Onoda: 10,000 Nights In The Jungle, which premiered in Un Certain Regard in 2021. It stars Léa Seydoux and Niels Schneider and follows a man who wakes up in the middle of the night to find himself trapped in the body of the mysterious woman he just had sex with. Neon has already snapped up the film for North America.
Contact: Marie-Laure Montironi, Pathé
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