Jan Gassmann’s ‘99 Moons’ Brings Soul and Body to Cannes

EXCLUSIVE: Coda producer Pathé has concluded a raft of sales on its Cannes slate including for starry French drama Masquerade, Directors’ Fortnight entry Paris Memories and Penelope Cruz title L’Immensita.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2 Films has locked major territory deals on Leonor Serraille’s drama “Mother and Son” which world premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and garnered strong reviews. “Mother and Son” charts the lives of a young African woman, Rose, and two of her four children, Jean and Ernest, who come to France from the Ivory Coast in the 1980s with high ideals.

Emiliano Granada Playing Directors’ Fortnight, Fabián Hernández’s “A Male” (“Un Varón”) underscores just how much Colombian cinema has evolved in recent years, in both technique and kind of storytelling. A meditation on manhood sold by Dubai-based Cercamon and seen at San Sebastian’s WIP Latin last year, it turns on 16-year-old Carlos (Dylan Felipe Ramírez Espitia), glimpses of his deep turmoil shining through a stoic facade. His mother in jail, his sister on the game,Carlos lives in a central Bogotá homeless shelter in central Bogotá.Over Christmas, he wanders his local streets, dominated by the ideal of the alpha male and an eye-for-an eye vengeance. Sensitivity is conspicuous by its absence.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Lendarys,” a big-budget family adventure animation film that is currently in production, scored a handful of pre-sales during the Cannes Market. Rights sales are handled by Hong Kong-, Paris and Los Angeles-based All Rights Entertainment.With a production budget of $30 million, the film is the directorial debut of Philippe Duchene and Jean-Baptiste Cuvelier.

Afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here. Cannes is wrapping and we have the very latest from the Croisette, plus a hell of a lot more in this week’s deep dive. Read on.

Radiohead side-project The Smile debuted a new song called ‘Bodies Laughing’ during a recent show in Berlin – check out the footage below.The trio – comprising Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner – are currently out on a European headline tour in support of their debut album ‘A Light For Attracting Attention’, which came out earlier this month.Last Friday (May 20) saw The Smile perform an unreleased number as part of a 16-track set at the German capital’s Tempodrom venue (via Setlist.FM).Footage of the first ‘Bodies Laughing’ airing has since emerged online. “So, yesterday we wrote another new song,” Yorke told the crowd.

Naman Ramachandran Indian actor Jackie Shroff (“Sooryavanshi”) will play the lead in Singapore-France-India co-production “Slow Joe,” it was revealed at the Cannes Film Market.Shroff will play the late Indian musician Joseph Manuel Da Rocha, known as Slow Joe, a former heroin addict and drug dealer who was born in Mumbai, was disowned by his family, heartbroken at 50 and who moved to Goa and cleaned up. On a trip to Goa in 2007, Lyon-based French musician Cédric de la Chapelle met Joe, now a frail 64-year-old who was making ends meet as a hotel room broker. Joe, also a poet and musician, sang for de la Chapelle, who was captivated by his voice and recorded some of his a cappella songs.Back in France, de la Chapelle played Joe’s songs for music producer Olivier Boccon-Gibod of Horizon Musiques, who was also entranced.

JD Linville Swiss filmmaker Lionel Baier (“Stealth,” “Longwave”) has completed the third movement in his sweeping film tetralogy concerning Europe with “Continental Drift (South).” The film, which debuts at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, sees Baier shifting his focus southward to Sicily in 2020, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and deep within the European migrant crisis.Isabelle Carré (“Remembering Beautiful Things,” “Mademoiselle Else”) plays Nathalie Adler, who has been dispersed to a migrant camp in Catania, Sicily ahead of a visit from Macron and Merkel only to find her pugnacious son Albert, played by Canadian Théodore Pellerin (“Genesis,” “My Salinger Year”) working against her interests as an activist. The film, which is produced by Bandita Films with RTS and Les Films du Losange handling sales, strikes a balance between political satire and heartfelt drama, as Nathalie and Albert push and pull, magnetic at the edges of their estrangement.

Emma Thompson spoke about her body image struggles when preparing for her new film “Good Luck To You, Leo Grande” in a new interview.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorErotic love story “99 Moons,” which has its world premiere in Cannes’ ACID sidebar today, has kicked off international sales. Berlin-based M-Appeal is handling the rights to the film, which is directed by Jan Gassmann.Arthouse VOD platform Filmin has taken the rights in Spain, and arthouse distributor StraDa Films has taken the films for Greece. France and Latin America are in negotiation.

EXCLUSIVE: As Roman Abramovich-backed Tchaikovsky’s Wife unspools this week at the Cannes Film Festival, the French Ministry of Economy and Finance has clarified its position regarding movies backed by sanctioned oligarchs.

A 24-year-old man has admitted killing a pet dog by stabbing it several times with a screwdriver.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam has appointed its new team line up and structure as the festival revamps.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefEpic Pictures Releasing has licensed North American rights to Korean action film “Hot Blooded,” from leading Seoul-based film sales agency Finecut. The deal is one of several struck by the agency ahead of Cannes, where it is also launching sales on Critics’ Week title “Next Sohee.”Starring Bae Doona and Kim Si-eun, “Next Sohee” is directed by Jung July, whose acclaimed “A Girl at My Door” played in Un Certain regard in 2014.

Lise Pedersen The fourth edition of Animation Day, which is part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Market, will take place on May 22.A one-day event aimed at the global animation filmmaking community, it is a joint initiative launched in 2019 by the Cannes Film Market and the Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival, in partnership with Animation! Ventana Sur, the animation branch of Latin America’s leading film market.This edition will kick off with the Annecy Goes to Cannes pitching sessions, featuring five works-in-progress projects at various stages of development.