Trace Lysette Digs Deep for Venice Festival Film ‘Monica’

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Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor Super, the boutique distribution label from Neon, has acquired U.S. rights to Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” after it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury prize in Venice along with the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future award. “Saint Omer” was recently shortlisted for France’s submission to the Academy Awards and will premiere at the New York Film Festival and play the BFI London Festival. Neon plans a theatrical release. “Saint Omer” is Diop’s debut fiction feature, which she co-wrote with Amrita David and Marie NDiaye, and it stars Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville and Aurélia Petit. Toufik Ayadi and Christophe Barral of Srab Films produced alongside Arte France Cinéma and Pictanovo Hauts-de-France.

Neon’s boutique label Super has secured U.S. rights to Alice Diop’s acclaimed drama Saint Omer, following its world premiere earlier this month at the Venice Film Festival, where the film won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, as well as the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future Award for Best Debut Feature.

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Caylee Cowan waves at the cameras after arriving at the airport with Casey Affleck in Venice, Italy on Tuesday (September 6).

Trace Lysette arrives at the premiere of her new film Monica at the 2022 Venice Film Festival on Saturday (September 3) in Venice, Italy.

Transparent’s Trace Lysette stars in the Venice Competition title Monica, directed and co-written by Andrea Pallaoro, who returns to the Lido after his films Medeas and Hannah.

Andrea Pallaoro’s “Monica” is oblique in its depiction of characters in crisis, yet never obtuse. He and cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi shoot the film in the boxier Academy ratio, locking the film into a nearly permanent state of portraiture.

When Trace Lysette got to Venice for the premiere of the Andrea Pallaoro-directed drama Monica, she learned that she becomes the first Trans actress to headline a competition film here. Lysette plays the title character, a Trans woman who comes home to care for the mother who rejected her years ago, The young woman has a lot of personal issues she is working through, but among the most frustrating is that the mental faculties of her mother (Patricia Clarkson) are failing along with her health. She doesn’t recognize her child, and Monica tries her best to build a bond as her caretaker. Lysette was a regular in the Amazon series Transparent, and she co-starred with Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu in Hustlers. But this is her first leading role in a movie. We met at the Excelsior hotel for a Disruptors party thrown by Deadline, Thelios and Guillotine Vodka. It is clear that setting a milestone in Venice is not something Lysette takes lightly.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian director Andrea Pallaoro is back on the Lido with English-language drama “Monica,” starring transgender actor Trace Lysette (“Transparent”) as a woman who returns home to the Midwest to care for her dying mother, played by Patricia Clarkson. His sophomore feature, “Hannah,” premiered at Venice with star Charlotte Rampling winning the festival’s Coppa Volpi for the best actress in 2017. Pallaoro, who lives in L.A., spoke to Variety about making a film that is not about “transitioning per se,” he says, but about the title character’s rapport with the world long after the transition has occurred. What drew you to the subject matter?

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