09/05/2023 - Sales look set to soar thanks to Omen in the Un Certain Regard section, Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe in Cannes Première and Lost Country in Critics’ Week

With two films gracing the Official Selection and one chosen for Critics’ Week, the line-up wielded by French sales agent Memento International (directed by Émilie Georges) looks set to soar at the Marché du Film (running 16 – 24 May), unspooling within the 76th Cannes Film Festival.

The team led by Mathieu Delaunay and Alexandre Moreau will notably be pinning its hopes on a first feature film preceded by a chorus of positive buzz: Omen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Baloji
film profile] by Congolese director Baloji. Starring Belgian actors Marc Zinga and Lucie Debay, Rwanda’s Eliane Umuhire, and Yves-Marina Gnahoua and Marcel Otete Kabeya, the film follows Koffi’s return to the land of his birth, having previously been ostracised by his family. The story explores the impact beliefs have on our destiny by way of four characters accused of witchcraft and sorcery, all of them intertwining and guiding one another through the phantasmagoria of Africa… Production is steered by Belgium’s Wrong Men in co-production with their compatriots Serendipity Films, the Congo’s Tosala Films, the Netherlands’ New Amsterdam Film Company, France’s Special Touch Studios, Germany’s Radical Media and South Africa’s Big World Cinema.

The line-up also includes a title set to be presented in the Cannes Première programme, which proved incredibly helpful to Memento International’s The Night of the 12th [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dominik Moll
film profile] last year. This time round, it’s Martin Provost’s Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martin Provost
film profile] which is set to enjoy the spotlight, a movie steered by Les Films du Kiosque and starring Cécile de France, Vincent Macaigne, Anouk Grinberg, Stacy Martin and André Marcon, among other names.

Buyers will likewise find themselves drawn to Lost Country [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vladimir Perišić
film profile] by Serbia’s Vladimir Perisič, who’s returning to the Critics’ Week competition fourteen years after his shock debut with Ordinary People [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vladimir Perisic: Ordinary …
film profile]. Having written the screenplay with Alice Winocour, the director takes us back to Serbia in 1996, where, against a backdrop of student protests against Milosevic’s regime, 15-year-old Stefan must lead the hardest revolution of all: standing up to his beloved mother, a spokesperson and partner of the corrupt government which his friends are rising up against… Production is steered by France’s Easy Riders Films and KinoElektron, in co-production with fellow French firms Arte France Cinéma and Cosmodigital, Serbia’s Trilema Films, Croatia’s Kinorama and Luxembourg’s Red Lion.

Last but not least, Memento International are scheduled to pre-sell Bruno Dumont’s The Empire [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile] on the basis of a promo reel, and round off sales on their Berlin competitor Art College by Liu Jian, as well as on their Sundance titles: Drift [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Anthony Chen and Fremont by Babak Jalali.

(Translated from French)