Renowned French auteur Arnaud Desplechin, whose latest film “Brother and Sister” competed at Cannes Film Festival in 2022, is currently wrapping his next directorial effort, “Spectateurs!”
Les Films du Losange, which handles French distribution and international sales rights to the title, has unveiled a first still (above) in the run-up to the Unifrance Rendez-Vous With French Cinema market, where it will introduce the film to buyers.
The hybrid project weaves documentary and fiction with a cast including Milo Machado Graner, the young breakthrough actor of Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” and well-known French actors Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”) and Françoise Lebrun (“The Book of Solutions”).
Now in post, the docufiction is described by Les Films du Losange as “a love letter to cinema, freely inspired by the director’s own discovery and passion for cinema.”
A Croisette regular, Desplechin previously directed “Deception,” an adaptation of Philip Roth’s book “The Counterlife” which starred Lea Seydoux and played at Cannes Premiere in 2021; “Oh Mercy!,” which competed in 2019; and “Ismael’s Ghosts,” the opening film of Cannes’ 2017 edition. The director made his English-language debut with “Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian),” which starred Guillermo Del Toro.
“Spectateur!” is produced by CG Cinema, the Paris-based banner behind Leos Carax’s “Annette”; Arte France Cinema and Scala Films. Les Films du Losange, the company acquired by CG Cinema’s owners in 2021, will distribute the title in France.
Desplechin said the project was meant to “celebrate movie theaters and their manifold magic” through “memories, fiction and discoveries.”
“I walked in the footsteps of young Paul Dédalus, as if in a filmgoer’s coming-of-age story,” he added.
