EXCLUSIVE: The Brussels-based company will introduce both projects at next week’s Paris Rendez-Vous along with caper comedy ‘Conrad & Crab – Idiotic Gems’
Brussels-based sales outfit Best Friend Forever is launching sales at Unifrance’s Paris Rendez-Vous (January 13-20) on two debut features – Thomas Vernay’s Fief and Alexandre Steiger’s The Ecology Of Feelings – alongside Conrad Schmitz’s crime comedy Conrad & Crab – Idiotic Gems.
Fief is an ensemble drama set in the historic town of Nemours that centres on a promising young boxer hiding the fact that he no longer wants to fight and shaken up by the return of a friend and the departure of his girlfriend. It is based on David Lopez’s prize-winning French novel of the same name, and stars an ensemble cast of rising French talents led by Sayyid El Alami, Panayotis Pascot, Sami Outalbali and Birane Ba.
The film is produced by Iconoclast Films and Middlemen and is currently in post-production, with Ad Vitam set to release locally.
The Ecology Of Feelings also brings together an ensemble cast of up-and-coming French actors including Andranic Manet, Salome Rose Stein and Abraham Wapler. It is about a young animal rights activist headed to Paris for a protest at the city’s agriculture trade fair, who meets a hotel owner’s son and brings him along for the ride.
It is the debut feature from comedy actor and novelist Steiger, whose short film Pourquoi J’ai Ecrit La Bible won the SACD prize at Clermont Ferrand in 2018.
Unité produced the film, which is in post and will be released in France by Tandem. Best Friend Forever described it as “a charming romantic comedy that captures the mindset of the young generation when it comes to environmental issues”.
Rounding out the company’s slate is Conrad & Crab – Idiotic Gems which centres on a pair of befuddled detectives who are transferred to a small town in northeastern France, where they get entangled in an investigation around the theft of a priceless jewel.
Francis Soetens, Rodolphe Burger and Anne Suarez star in the film, which reteams Best Friend Forever with Belgian writer/director Schmitz following 2023 Directors’ Fortnight selection The Other Laurens.
The film is produced by Belgium’s Wrong Men with France’s Chevaldeuxtrois and will have its world premiere at the upcoming International Film Festival Rotterdam.
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