‘The French’ Film Review: Reissued Sports Doc Serves a Spirited Look at Tennis’ Golden Age

EXCLUSIVE: European arthouse sales force The Match Factory and ICM Partners are teaming up to jointly represent four films playing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Quick, name the movie: A middle-aged actress hits the road, carrying on her shoulders an understated docurealist drama about present-day financial precarity, while surrounded by non-professional actors playing versions of themselves.  If you answered “Nomadland,” well, that was the intent.

‘Holy Motors,’ Holy S#*!”)But when Carax’s new film, “Annette,” premiered at Cannes on Tuesday, it faced a tougher road. The French filmmaker, after all, has the opening-night competition slot this year, which means his new film can’t come as a breath of fresh, weird air the way his last film did.

The 74th Cannes Film Festival is back after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The red carpet was rolled out on Tuesday, launching the French Riviera spectacular with the premiere of Leos Carax's "Annette." "Annette" is a fantastical musical starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard and scored by the musical duo Sparks.

It’s a loose riff on the Amanda Knox story, basically. A father travels from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn’t commit.

Charlotte Gainsbourg is not only a multifaceted renaissance woman, actor, model, singer; she’s also French royalty, the daughter of louche French pop singer Serge Gainsbourg and model/actress/singer Jane Birkin. She’s also now a filmmaker, having made her first documentary, “Charlotte By Jane,” which melds all of these ideas together.

a successful-ish 2018 novel by Patrick deWitt. In her most prominent role for at least a decade, Pfeiffer plays Frances Price, an ageing Manhattan socialite, and her adult son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) is the target of this waspish aside.

Equation to an Unknown (★★★☆☆), originally released in 1980, winds a wild path through a young hero’s love life.Long lost to the vestiges of memory, the film, directed by Francis Savel under his nom-de-porn Dietrich de Velsa, was rediscovered by French filmmaker Yann Gonzalez (Knife + Heart), who commissioned a new print from the original camera negative, resulting in this gorgeous video transfer, now available for streaming on Pinklabel.tv.Dark-haired looker Gianfranco Longhi stars as a

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMemento International (“Call Me By Your Name”) has closed a raft of sales on Leah Purcell’s Australian revenge tale “The Drover’s Wife,” and Alex Camilleri’s “Luzzu” which world premiered at SXSW and Sundance, respectively. After selling North American rights to “The Drover’s Wife” to Samuel Goldwyn, Memento has sold “The Drover’s Wife” to the U.K.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentSamuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to “American Sausage Standoff” (“Gutterbee”), a comedy by Danish actor-turned-filmmaker Ulrich Thomsen who stars in “Banshee.” The movie is represented by REinvent International Sales.

EXCLUSIVE: Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions have acquired North American rights to writer/director Evan Jackson Leong’s Snakehead.

Gwyneth Paltrow has shared that she can only watch The Royal Tenenbaums from her body of work.The actress spoke about the film as part of a virtual reunion event at the Tribeca Festival.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterGina Rodriguez is teaming up with professional boxer Ryan Garcia to develop a sports drama about the athlete’s experiences as a Mexican American lightweight champion.Rodriguez, best known for The CW’s take on a telenovela “Jane the Virgin,” is directing, co-starring and producing the film.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentKino Lorber has acquired all North American rights to the Amos Gitai Film Collection, comprising 22 films by the award-winning bold Israeli director of Cannes’ Palme d’Or contenders “Kippur,” BAFTA-winning “Kadosh,” and “Free Zone” with Natalie Portman. Gitai’s latest film, “Laila in Haifa” (pictured), which featured Israeli and Palestinian actors, world premiered at Venice in 2020.