10 Directors to Watch: Ivory Coast’s Philippe Lacôte Makes Oscar International Shortlist With ‘Night of the Kings’

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorFacebook is officially in the running for an Academy Award.The social giant’s Oculus virtual-reality group, together with EA’s Respawn Entertainment, co-produced “Colette,” a documentary short created as part of VR video game “Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond.” On Monday, the film received an Oscar nomination for documentary short subject.The 24-minute film from director Anthony Giacchino and producer Alice Doyard follows former French Resistance member Colette

On Monday morning, French playwright Florian Zeller’s first feature film, The Father, collected six Oscar nominations. And it seems there will be more where that came from. Speaking via Zoom after nominations were announced, Zeller revealed to Deadline that he’s currently finishing up an adaptation of the newest of his plays: The Son—and he knows exactly who he wants to cast, too.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentTV France International, the French TV promotion organisation, is launching the first edition of Rendez-Vous DOCS, a series of online pitching dedicated to documentaries. Aimed at 124 buyers across 38 countries, the sessions will highlight 18 projects and each program will be pitched by producers/and or sales agents and filmmakers at a Paris venue called Le Shack.

Little Mix, Christine And The Queens, Rita Ora, The Staves and others have used their platforms to celebrate women today (March 8) for the annual campaign.Christine And The Queens wrote on Twitter (as translated from French to English) to “listen to female performers every day of the year” to support female-identifying people making art.Meanwhile, Rita Ora wrote: “There is no force greater than a group of unified women.

Netflix has shared a trailer for the second part of its hit French thriller series Lupin – take a look below.Lupin premiered on Netflix on January 8, 2021, releasing the first five episodes of the series in one go.The streaming giant confirmed later that month that the second part, another five episodes, would be appearing this year, but did not give a specific date.Now, an official trailer for the second part has been revealed, along with the news that it will air in summer.

Naman Ramachandran International sales agency The Open Reel has scored a number of sales at the Berlin European Film Market (EFM).Daniel Sánchez López’s BFI Flare LGBTIQ+ Film Festival selection “Boy Meets Boy,” a German production, has sold to Peccadillo Pictures for the U.K. and Ireland and to Optimale to France and Francophone territories.

A romantic notion persists that after the Nazis conquered France in 1940 almost the whole French nation rose up heroically to join the Résistance. Not so, as the Oscar-shortlisted short documentary Colette affirms.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic“Give me a child until he is 7, and I will show you the man,” proposed Aristotle, to which fiercely feminist French director Céline Sciamma might add, “Give me a woman, and I will show you the free, unbroken spirit she still was at age 8.”Sciamma, who went from being a queer cult favorite (for such bracingly free indies as “Tomboy” and “Water Lilies”) to an internationally respected auteur with 2019’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” follows up that barrier-breaking

Christopher Vourlias Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based New Europe Film Sales continues its pre-sales of “The Peasants,” the hotly anticipated follow-up from Oscar-nominated “Loving Vincent” director Dorota Kobiela, selling rights for Germany and Austria to Koch Media.As reported earlier, New Europe brokered a deal with The Jokers for distribution in France of the buzzy animated feature.“The Peasants” is produced by BreakThru Films’ Sean Bobbitt and Hugh Welchman, who also co-wrote the script, using

Many were shocked when Lady Gaga’s dog walker was shot and two of her French bulldogs stolen just last week, leaving the singer devastated and desperate to have them back.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThe Party Film Sales has closed further deals on Filippo Meneghetti’s romance “Two of Us,” which represents France in the international feature film race at the Oscars and is part of 15 shortlisted films.Headlined by Martine Chevallier and Barbara Sukowa, the Golden Globe-nominated feature debut follows Nina and Madeleine, two pensioners who have hidden their deep and passionate love for many decades and see their bond put to the test when they are

Nomadland, becoming the first woman of colour to win in the category. She's the second woman ever to earn the trophy, following Barbra Streisand's victory for Yentl in 1983.

Jamie Lang International sales agent Be For Films has given Variety exclusive access to the international trailer for Andreas Fontana’s first feature “Azor,” selected for this year’s Encounters section at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentTF1 Studio, a unit of the powerful media group Newen Connect, has signed an exclusive international distribution deal with UGC Images, a subsidiary of Europe’s second-biggest cinema circuit.

The film by director David France (2012’s Oscar nominee “How to Survive a Plague”) is a chronicle of the violence against the LGBT population in the Russian republic of Chechnya.

A prisoner becomes a storyteller in Night Of The Kings, Ivory Coast’s vivid International Feature Oscar shortlist selection written and directed by Philippe Lacôte (Run). Newcomer Bakary Koné stars as a pickpocket who arrives at La MACA, a notorious prison in the Ivorian forest.