Producer Patrick Sobelman & Gaumont Exec Ariane Toscan du Plantier To Head Up France’s César Academy

EXCLUSIVE: Mike Goodridge has been on a rare journey. Not many in the industry can boast a CV that includes running a trade publication, an international sales company, a film festival and being the producer of multiple Cannes Film Festival movies.

Cannes parallel section Critics’ Week opens Wednesday with French director Jonathan Millet’s psychological manhunt thriller Ghost Trail (Les Fantômes), starring Adam Bessa as man in in pursuit of a faceless, former torturer.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Bureau Sales has teamed with French production banner Paprika and filmmaker Vincent Munier on “Whispering in the Woods,” a documentary that will be teased to buyers at the Cannes Film Market. “Whispering in the Woods” marks Munier’s follow-up to “The Velvet Queen” (co-directed by Marie Amiguet), a critically acclaimed documentary that competed for a Golden Eye Award at the Cannes Film Festival and won a Cesar prize in 2022. The doc is currently filming across different locations, from the Vosges mountains to Tibet, and is expected to be delivered by next spring.

The Cannes Film Festival opened Tuesday with expectations that the big theme of this 81st edition will be #MeToo, even if rumors of an imminent bombshell exposé involving 10 prominent cinema figures were quashed overnight.

Greta Gerwig addressed the growing #MeToo movement in France at the jury press conference on opening day of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. “I think people in the community of movies telling us stories and trying to change things for the better is only good,” Gerwig said when asked how she felt about #MeToo-related rumors swirling ahead of the festival. “I have seen substantive change in in the American film community, and I think it’s important that we continue to expand that conversation.

Jamie Lang Catalan titles will be in no short supply at this year’s Cannes Festival and Marché du Film. Below, a near dozen titles that hope to impress at this year’s event. “Blue Sun Palace,” (Constance Tsang) Tsang’s debut feature, shot in New York, world premieres at this year’s Critics’ Week.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Veteran Asian executive Buddy Marini has been appointed GM of Warner Bros. Discovery in Japan.The role covers all operations in Japan including home entertainment, digital & TV licensing, consumer products, anime production, franchise and pay-TV networks, but excluding theatrical and the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo: The Making of Harry Potter business. Marini joins WBD with 25+ years’ experience in leadership across media and technology companies in Japan, China and the U.S.

As a #MeToo wave looked to rock the 77th Cannes Film Festival with rumors swirling that filmmakers with films at the event would be tagged, Thierry Frémaux emphasized his event isn’t about polemics, rather the picture that’s on the screen. If there are controversies during Cannes “we try to avoid them” he said today during an afternoon presser.

French actress and activist Judith Godreche is among a group of protestors who have set up a demonstration outside the CNC in Paris this morning calling for the organization’s head Dominique Boutonnat to be suspended. 

EXCLUSIVE: A petition calling for Dominique Boutonnat — the President of France’s cinema board — to be dismissed is rapidly circulating among French industry professionals and has clocked over 500 signatures in its first few hours of publication. 

Novak Djokovic is seeking medical attention after being struck in the head by a fan’s water bottle.

A growing list of at least 300 international industry professionals, including John Landis, Louis Garrel, Ernest Dickerson, and Ariane Labed have lent their names to a petition in support of a planned strike action by Cannes Film Festival workers during this year’s edition.

Paramore gave their cover of Talking Heads‘ ‘Burning Down The House’ its live debut while opening for Taylor Swift in Paris last night (May 9). Watch the footage and see the full setlist below.Hayley Williams and co.

Naman Ramachandran The European Film Academy has added a record 709 new members in its 2024 annual intake. New members include Cate Blanchett (Australia/U.K.), Jovan Marjanović (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Maria Bakalova (Bulgaria), Juraj Lerotić (Croatia), Anna Hints (Estonia), Ariane Toscan du Plantier (France), Stéphan Castang (France), David Thion (France), Marie-Ange Luciani (France), Latifa Saïd (France), Rebecca Houzel (France), Thomas Hakim (France), Sami Mustafa (France/Kosovo), Mohamed Siam (France), Hanna Bergholm (Finland), Hamze Bytyçi (Germany) and Christian M.

Film Bridge Sets ‘Helloween’ As First Film On Genre Slate With Shogun Films

EXCLUSIVE: After clinching the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2019 with her debut fiction feature Atlantics, French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop had one burning desire. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Indie Sales is re-teaming with rising Belgian filmmaker Laura Wandel on her sophomore feature “In Adam’s Interest,” having previously sold around the world her critically acclaimed feature debut “Playground” which premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. “In Adam’s Interest” also reunites Wandel with producer Stéphane Lhoest at Belgium’s Dragons Films, and is produced by Delphine Tomson at Les Films du Fleuve, the Dardenne’ brothers banner. Co-producers are Jan de Clercq at Lunanime, who will release the film in Benelux under his distribution company Lumière; and Marie-Ange Luciani‘s Les Films de Pierre, the Oscar-nominated outfit behind “Anatomy of a Fall.” Memento will release “In Adam’s Interest” in French theaters.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Isabelle Huppert will preside over the main jury of the upcoming Venice Film Festival. The revered French actor has a longstanding rapport with the Lido, having won Venice’s Coppa Volpi for best actress twice, first with “Story of Women” in 1988, and subsequently with “La Cérémonie” in 1995, both directed by Claude Chabrol.

Studiocanal has appointed former Netflix France exec Isabelle Pain as Head of Global Acquisitions & Analytics in a new position created in response to the company’s international expansion.

Two weeks from today, finally, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will open its new permanent exhibition, Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital. For many, it amounts to an act of completion. A Hollywood film museum without a special tribute to Jewish roots has felt for the last two-and-a-half years like a church without a tabernacle, a history made up of footnotes without the text.