07/02/2014 - At the EFM, the pre-sales have begun for the new film in post-production by the winner of the 2008 Palme d'Or. Also on the line-up is Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini

Things are looking good for the Paris-based international sales agent Funny Balloons, as it announced at the European Film Market at the 64th Berlinale (6-16 February 2014) the arrival in its line-up of the new film by Laurent Cantet - Return to Ithaca - as well as the start of pre-sales for the title. Filmed in Cuba, the feature has been in post-production since the end of December.

Written by the Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura together with the filmmaker, the screenplay kicks off on a balcony overlooking Havana at sunset. Five friends have come together to celebrate the return of Amadeo after his 16 years in exile. Between dusk and dawn, they reminisce about their adolescence, the group that they used to be part of, their confident outlook on the future, as well as their disappointments...

Having won the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes International Film Festival with The Class [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carole Scotta
interview: Laurent Cantet
film profile], Laurent Cantet also received the New Directors’ Award at San Sebastian in 1999 and the César for Best Début Feature with Human Resources, as well as the Golden Lion in the “Cinema of the Present” section at Venice in 2001 with Time Out. His third feature, Heading South [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laurent Cantet
interview: Robin Campillo
interview: Simon Arnal-Szlovak
film profile], was selected in official competition at Venice in 2005, notably scooping the Best Male Newcomer Award, and his latest opus, Foxfire, Confessions of a Girl Gang [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laurent Cantet
film profile], won the Best Actress Award at San Sebastian in 2012.

Produced by the new company Full House (Didar Domehri, Laurent Baudens and Gaël Nouaille), Return to Ithaca has been co-produced by Orange Studio, Haut et Court (which will oversee distribution in French cinemas) and the Belgian companies Panache Productions and La Compagnie Cinématographique, in association with Backup Media.

Also on Funny Balloons’ Berlinale line-up is Pasolini by the American Abel Ferrara, with production outsourced to the French company Capricci, and co-production by Tarantula (Belgium), Urania Pictures (Italy), Arte France Cinéma and Dublin Films (France). Backing is provided by Eurimages, the Aquitaine and Pays de la Loire regions, and Walimage. Starring Willem Dafoe, Valerio Mastandrea, Adriana Asti and Maria de Medeiros, the movie, which began filming in Rome, tells the story of the final day of Pier Paolo Pasolini, on 2 November 1975. In Rome, he finds a lover, a young male prostitute with whom he arranges to get together with other “low-lives” the following evening. Meanwhile, those close to him have a warning for him: he has to stop writing incendiary anti-establishment articles, as it’s just too risky. But Pasolini wants to condemn injustice, no matter the cost...

At the market screening in Berlin, the Funny Balloons team, headed by Peter Danner, will be pinning its hopes on the Franco-Belgian co-production Ablations by Arnold de Parscau (read the article) and Club Sandwich by Fernando Eimbcke (who won the Best Director Award at San Sebastian). Also on the line-up is the Franco-American title Nasty Baby by Chilean Sebastián Silva, currently in post-production.

(Translated from French)