Gaumont, which is co-producing and distributing domestically and internationally, will kick off sales at the AFM in November. 

French directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano are in pre-production on their next film, a social comedy entitled Samba starring Omar Sy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tahar Rahim and Izya Higelin.

Gaumont, which is co-producing and will distribute the picture domestically and internationally, has confirmed the production will start shooting at the end of October for an end 2014 delivery.

“It’s a social comedy — playful, universal and very moving … but that’s all I can say for now,” said Gaumont sales chief Cécile Gaget.

Gaumont is due to start pre-sales on the film in earnest at the upcoming AFM in November. “We’re already in talks in some territories,” revealed Gaget. 

The new film, a co-production between Gaumont, Paris-based production house Quad and Nakache and Toledano’s company Ten — comes some two years after the directorial duo’s global box office hit Untouchables made its world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

The film, starring Francois Cluzet as a rich tetraplegic who strikes up an unlikely friendship with an unemployed Senegalese man, went on to become the most-theatrically viewed French-language picture outside of France in history with 23.2m global admissions and was seen by some 20m spectators back home. 

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