Venice Competition-Bound ‘Lost Illusions’ Pre-Sells to Major Markets for Gaumont (EXCLUSIVE)

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentBanijay has boarded “Countrymen,” a new drama series produced by its Norwegian label, Rubicon, with a cast of Scandinavian stars, including Nader Khademi (“Ninjababy”), Ayaz Hussain (“Kasim Bæder”), Jonas Strand Gravli (“Ragnarok”) Arben Bala (“Lilyhammer”) and Erika Strand Mamelund. The show will world premiere at Cannes Series and has been commissioned by the public broadcaster NRK, in co-production with Arte France.

Gojira have become the latest band to have some fossils named after them.The French metal band have had a trio of “brittle star fossils” named in their honour by scientists at Luxembourg’s Natur Musee and America’s Florida Museum (via Kerrang!).The brittle stars, which are a similar shape to starfish, were discovered in France, Luxembourg and Austria on what was once the Jurassic Tethys Ocean bed.The scientists named the three fossils Ophiogojira labadiei, Ophiogojira andreui and

EXCLUSIVE: CAA has signed French filmmaker and novelist Audrey Diwan. Her second film, L’Evenement (Happening) won the Golden Lion on Saturday, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. The picture immediately becomes a hot awards season title, and domestic distribution is being sorted by CAA Media Finance and Wild Bunch.

EXCLUSIVE: Following a tussle for rights in the territory, Protagonist Pictures has closed a French all-rights deal with Wild Bunch for well-received comedy Official Competition, starring Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz and Oscar Martínez.

Audrey Diwan’s 1960s abortion drama “L’Evenement” (“Happening”) won the Golden Lion at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, while the runner up honor went to Paolo Sorrentino’s semi-autobiographical “The Hand of God.”

Marta Balaga Canadian actor Sarah Gadon told Variety Saturday she was “really happy” with the decisions of Venice’s main jury this year, on which she served alongside Bong Joon-ho, Saverio Costanzo, Virginie Efira, Cynthia Erivo, Alexander Nanau and last year’s Golden Lion winner Chloé Zhao.The jury gave the Golden Lion to French director Audrey Diwan’s powerful abortion drama “Happening,” while Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama “The Hand of God” took

In Annus Mirabilis, the English poet Philip Larkin wrote that sexual intercourse was invented in 1963. Life was thus never better, he concluded, than in that year. Those lines strayed into my mind watching L’Événement (Happening), about a student in provincial France named Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei) who realizes she is pregnant during the countdown to her final examinations.

Audrey Diwan’s “L’Evenement” (“Happening”) has won the Golden Lion at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.

Liza Foreman From Patricia Highsmith’s diaries to French graphic novels, the 6th edition of the Book Adaptation Rights Market (BARM) at the Venice Production Bridge film market, gave publishers a welcome chance to meet face-to-face with producers interested in good writing for the screen.The three-day event hosted meetings between top European publishers, and their production partners, from Switzerland’s Diogenes Verlag to Britain’s Andrew Nurnberg Associates, whose titles include “Hitler and

Work eats our lives. For nine, 10 hours a day — often more — we are either at work, traveling to work or catching up on work at home. Yet, for whatever reason, the process and patina of working life is rarely the subject of cinema. Except in the films of Stéphane Brizé, the French director who has made the workplace his stomping ground.

France, The Last Duel follows Jodie Comer's character Marguerite de Carrouges after she is sexually assaulted by her husband's best friend.

Everyone has their own truth, as they say, but some of those truths are considerably truer than others. Old pals Matt Damon and Ben Affleck join forces with established indie filmmaker Nicole Holofcener to adapt a true story – that of Marguerite de Carrouges, a 14th century French noblewoman who was raped by an old friend of her husband’s – and tell it from three different angles in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel.

France, The Last Duel follows Jodie Comer's character Marguerite de Carrouges after she is sexually assaulted by her husband's best friend. Her husband Jean (Matt Damon) challenges his friend Jacques (Adam Driver) to a state-sponsored trial by combat after she confides in him.

Matt Damon has his wife Luciana by his side for his latest movie premiere!

Ben Croll Everything old was new again at the Venice Film Festival on Friday, as actor Ben Affleck hit the red carpet hand in hand with girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, formally launching Bennifer 2.0.The couple posed alongside co-stars Matt Damon and Jodie Comer and director Ridley Scott as they took in the world premiere of their historical drama “The Last Duel,” a true story of betrayal and revenge set in 14th century France.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez just made their red carpet debut as a couple… for the second time!

Stéphane Brizé’s “Another World” could make for a worthy conclusion to an unofficial trilogy on contemporary economic relations, following the French filmmaker’s recent efforts “The Measure of a Man” and “At War.” Each work deploys the empathy machine of cinema to demonstrate the brokenness of a system powered by a dehumanizing focus on profits over all else, albeit leveling that critique from a different vantage point at each step along the way.

EXCLUSIVE: French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé reteams with frequent collaborator Vincent Lindon for Another World (Un Autre Monde), a Venice Film Festival competition entry that debuts today. Above is a clip from the drama that focuses on an executive, his wife and their family, at the point when his professional choices are about to overturn all their lives. Wild Bunch has international sales with CAA on North America.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent“Ennio,” the hotly anticipated Ennio Morricone doc by Oscar-winning Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore has sold to a slew of territories ahead of its world premiere Friday at the Venice Film FestivalBlock 2 Distribution, which is the sales arm of Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai’s Jet Tone films, has announced sales of the doc to Germany and Austria (Koch Media), Benelux (Periscope), France (Le Pacte), Scandinavia and Baltics (Non Stop Entertainment),

Naman Ramachandran Acclaimed French producer Catherine Dussart has a full production slate including new works from veterans Amos Gitai, Rithy Panh and Peter Greenaway.Dussart is currently at the Venice Film Festival where Indian filmmaker Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s “Once Upon a Time in Calcutta,” co-produced by her Catherine Dussart Productions, is playing in the Horizons strand.