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MK2 International gets ready to shine at the Rendez-vous with French Cinema

by 

- Guédiguian, Brizé, Nadjari, the Taviani brothers, Kurosawa, Kawase, Jia Zhangke, Abel and Gordon, and Elodie Namer all feature on the line-up

MK2 International gets ready to shine at the Rendez-vous with French Cinema
The Tournament by Elodie Namer

The 17th Rendez-vous with French cinema, organised in Paris from 15-19 January by UniFrance, looks set to be very promising for sales agent MK2 International, which will be presenting a first-rate line-up to distributors. Featuring among the screenings is a world premiere of The Tournament [+see also:
trailer
interview: Lou de Laâge
film profile
]
by young director Elodie Namer (read the article), which stars Michelangelo Passaniti, rising star Lou De Laâge and Magne-Håvard Brekke. Interestingly, Julien Poupard (Party Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marie Amachoukeli, Claire B…
film profile
]
) served as DoP on the movie.

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Above all, however, the team headed by Juliette Schrameck should have plenty of work to do in terms of selling films in post-production, given that so many of the names of the directors involved seem destined for future selections at major festivals around the world. Two of the titles that stand out are Don't Tell Me the Boy Was Mad by Robert Guédiguian (read the article), and the Italian-French co-production Wondrous Boccacio (Meraviglioso Boccaccio) by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (read the article), whose last feature (Caesar Must Die [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
film profile
]
) was triumphant at Berlin in 2012.

The line-up also includes A Simple Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stéphane Brizé
film profile
]
by Stéphane Brizé, the shoot for which wrapped recently. It stars Vincent Lindon as a man starting a new job as a security guard in a supermarket, and he is then faced with a moral dilemma when he is asked to keep tabs on his colleagues. It is produced by Nord-Ouest Films, and is the sixth feature film by the director of Not Here to Be Loved [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Mademoiselle Chambon [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and A Few Hours of Spring [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
).

Another title that recently entered post-production is Yzkor [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Raphaël Nadjari (read the article), a filmmaker who has been selected four times at Cannes (Tehilim [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
in competition in 2007, The Shade in Un Certain Regard in 1999, and Apartment #5C and A Strange Course of Events [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
at the Director’s Fortnight in 2002 and 2013) and twice at Berlin (I Am Josh Polonski’s Brother in the Forum in 2001 and Avanim in the Panorama in 2004). 

MK2 International is also pre-selling two co-productions between Japan and France: Journey to the Shore by Kyoshi Kurosawa, in which a man resurfaces and re-enters his wife’s life three years after he disappeared and was presumed drowned; and An by Naomi Kawase, which revolves around a baker who reluctantly accepts a helping hand in the kitchen from an old woman who quickly proves that she has magic fingers.

Lastly, Mountains May Depart by Chinese maestro Jia Zhangke (Platform, Still Life, A Touch of Sin) is currently in production – the film’s plot centres on three family members between 1999 and 2025, on a journey spanning from China to Australia, within a society that is changing at breakneck speed. And Lost in Paris [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon
film profile
]
, by the ultra-creative burlesque and poetic duo Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel (L'iceberg [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Rumba [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Charles Gillibert
interview: Dominique Abel and Fiona Go…
film profile
]
, The Fairy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon
film profile
]
), seems to be shaping up nicely in pre-production.

MK2 International is also pinning its hopes on two documentaries in post-production: Jia Zhangke, A Guy From Fenyang by Brazilian director Walter Salles and the musical Argentina by Spaniard Carlos Saura.

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(Translated from French)

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