Hot projects on Screenbase this week

French comedy The Chef is among the many new films that have been added to Screenbase. Produced by Cecile Gaget for Gaumont (which also handles international sales), the $14.3m production is set in the Paris restaurant industry and stars Jean Reno as a veteran chef alongside Michael Youn as a self-taught haute cuisine aficionado. Shooting will commence on May 26 with Daniel Cohen directing from his own script. The film has been sold to Australia (Icon), Latin America (Gussi Films), CIS (Top Films), Poland (Monolith Films) and the Middle East (Four Star). The French released is scheduled for next year.

Only God Forgives, about revenge, murder and corruption in the world of Thai boxing is jointly sold by Wild Bunch and Gaumont at the Cannes market. Written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, the film will star Luke Evans and Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm and Yaya Ying. Shooting will start at the end of this year on location in Bangkok and the crime drama will be released in the second half of 2012. Gaumont and Wild Bunch also partner on production and financing duties.

In London, shooting will kick off this month on Simon Aboud’s Comes A Bright Day, a love story/thriller which is set during an armed robbery at one of London’s most exclusive jewellers. Imogen Poots and Craig Roberts will headline the cast, with Timothy Spall and Kevin McKidd also featuring. Matador Pictures, Ipso Facto Films, Smudge Films and Lost Tribe Productions are producing. Aboud wrote the script and will direct the feature, which is being sold by Intandem Films at Cannes.

Bernardo Bertolucci is preparing the September shoot for his first 3D film, Me and You, which centres on an adolescent boy who likes confined spaces and hides out in a Rome basement. The coming-of-age drama was written by Umberto Contarello, Bertolucci and Niccolo Ammaniti and is produced by Mario Gianani as well as Bertolucci’s Fiction Cinematografica. Medusa Film has been confirmed to release the film in Italy.

Among other projects (see Screenbase for the latest updates), Pyramide International is selling Argentinean-Spanish co-production Wakolda in Cannes. Natalia Oreiro and Diego Peretti star in this drama about a girl who unknowingly falls in love with a Nazi war criminal while he is staying at her family’s boarding house. Lucia Puenzo will direct from her own script, as well as producing with Luis Puenzo for Historias Cinematograficas Cinemania. Wanda Films is producing for Spain. Shooting will start in the autumn and Pyramide has secured distribution rights for France.