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CANNES 2018 Market

Promising deals on the horizon for Doc & Film International

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- The firm boasts Samouni Road in the Fortnight, Dead Souls as an Official Selection special screening, plus new projects, including the upcoming film by Gianfranco Rosi

Promising deals on the horizon for Doc & Film International
Samouni Road by Stefano Savona

After a white-hot European Film Market in Berlin (at which it was able to surf the wave of Touch Me Not [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adina Pintilie
film profile
]
’s Golden Bear win), French international sales agent Doc & Film International is hard at work at the Film Market of the 71st Cannes Film Festival (8-19 May). Standing out on its line-up are two documentaries being showcased on the Croisette: Samouni Road [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefano Savona
film profile
]
by Italy’s Stefano Savona, which will have its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight, and Dead Souls [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by China’s Wang Bing (a French-Swiss production between Les Films d’Ici, CS Productions, ADOK Films and Arte France Cinéma), which will be unveiled as an Official Selection special screening. The 495-minute film introduces us to the survivors of the appalling reeducation camps set up in the Gobi Desert in China in 1957, during the so-called "anti-rightist" campaign.

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Hot docs EFP inside

The team headed up by Daniela Elstner is also officially kicking off pre-sales for the new, as yet untitled project (see the news) by Italian documentarian Gianfranco Rosi (Golden Lion at Venice in 2013 with Sacro GRA [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile
]
 and Golden Bear at Berlin in 2016 with Fire at Sea [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile
]
).

Also recently added to the slate is the French title Whatever Happened to My Revolution [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by and starring Judith Davis (who is flanked by fellow cast members Claire Dumas and Malik Zidi), which is now in post-production. The story centres on a thirty-something woman who is deeply involved in the idea of crusading for revolution, but who must return to live with her father, a former activist, after getting fired. The film was staged by Agat Films and Apsara Films.

Another new addition is the project in pre-production Noura's Dream [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Hinde Boujemaa. Produced by Propaganda Productions for Tunisia, Blue Monday for France and Eklektik Productions for Belgium, the movie will tell of the misfortunes of a mother of three who works as a launderer in a hospital, and whose husband is constantly in and out of prison. Having secretly fallen in love, she finally decides to ask for a divorce.

Lastly, Doc & Films is getting pre-sales under way for the US documentary in pre-production House of Cardin by P David Ebersole and Todd Hughes, which chronicles the life of famous fashion designer Pierre Cardin.

Standing out among the market screenings are the French-Japanese doc Each and Every Moment [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Nicolas Philibert (who delves to the heart of the training procedure to become a nurse), which will be viewable by invitation only, as well as the French-Portuguese "western" Rage [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Brazil’s Sérgio Tréfaut, the documentary Where Are You, João Gilberto? [+see also:
trailer
interview: Georges Gachot
film profile
]
by Georges Gachot (a co-production between Switzerland, France and Germany), and My Life by Liliana Torres and Sofi Escude Poulenc (a joint effort between Spain and France), a blend of documentary and animation.

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(Translated from French)

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