Hafsia Herzi’s coming-of-age story La Petite Dernière, about a young woman balancing her faith and family with her ambitions and sexuality, has just wrapped for rising French production outfit June Films; mk2 Films has acquired the buzzy title for international sales.
Newcomer Nadia Melliti stars alongside Return To Seoul’s Park-ji Min with Louis Memmi, Mouna Soualem, and several non-professional actors in an adaptation of Fatima Daas’ novel. It is about the daughter of Algerian immigrants in Paris struggling to reconcile what is expected of her by her family and society and the life she wants for herself.
It is Herzi’s third feature following 2021 Cannes’ Un Certain Regard prize-winner Good Mother and 2019 Critics’ Week debut feature You Deserve A Lover.
Julie Billy and Naomi Denamur of June Films produce with Arte France Cinema and Germany’s Katuh Studio. Ad Vitam will release the film in France in 2025.
Billy and Denamur are making a name for themselves as producers of films by female directors who have something fresh to say. Launched in 2020, their credits include Emma Benestan’s bull-fighting body horror Animale which closed Cannes’ Critics’ Week 2024 and sold to Film Movement for North America. Like the films being made by Herzi, Benestan’s film portrayed the second-generation immigrant experience in France while exploring themes of female sexuality and identity.
“We make movies that represent a new generation of female filmmakers who are redefining the genre film,” explains Billy. “In Animale, Emma [Benestan] put a French-Arab woman in the center of a Western and with La Petite Dernière, Hafsia [Herzi] is bringing a lesbian Muslim woman, a character previously underrepresented in literature, to the big screen. We want to make films that question the status quo, that change the way audiences look at the world.”
The June Films slate has a distinct international accent. Denamur previously worked at top sales companies mk2 and Le Pacte, and still works in acquisitions for Spain’s Elastica Films; Billy was a longtime producer at Haut et Court, one of France’s most internationally-focused production outfits, with credits including The Lobster, The Kindergarten Teacher and A Chiara, and with which they are co-producing selected June Films titles.
“Our aim is to look at our films with an international perspective,” Denamur affirms. “The French market is very concentrated in terms of financing, so we have to diversify. We pull funding and quality crew members from international co-production territories.”
They are now putting together the financing for Expectation, the English-language directorial debut of actress Clémence Poésy, based on Anna Hope’s 2019 novel about female friendship, co-written by Georgia Oakley. Haut et Court and the UK’s Potboiler are co-producing and casting is underway with renowned UK casting director Jina Jay.
The feature slate also includes France-Belgium-Sweden co-production Les Yeux Verts (working title), the next film from Gagarine directors Fanny Liatard and Jeremy Trouilh, which will star Anamaria Vartolomei and is co-written by Amelie and I Lost my Body screenwriter Guillaume Laurent. The film is a children’s survival story told through magical realism and is a co-production between June, Haut et Court, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Belgian production house Les Films du Fleuve, and Sweden’s Hobab Films.
June is also working with international filmmakers including US directing duo Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw whose credits include the award-winning feature documentary The Truffle Hunters and 2024’s Gaucho Gaucho. They are in pre-production on their next feature documentary will be co-produced by Dweck and Kershaw’s Beautiful Stories Productions.
On the TV side, June Films produced The Confidante (Une Amie Dévouée) the first French original series for Warner Bros Discovery’s Max. Directed by The Swarm and Acid filmmaker Just Phllippot, The Confidante is about a woman, played by Laure Calamy, who lies to a support group for survivors of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks about her involvement in the tragedy.
“We want our films to challenge taboos,” says Denamur. “To try to push the limits as much as possible and bring some boldness into the ring.”
Buyers will have their first glimpse of Herzi’s La Petite Dernière as mk2 launches sales at the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris next week.
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