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CANNES 2019 Marché du Film

Three Luxbox titles to be showcased in Cannes

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- Set to be sold by the French sales agent on the Croisette this year are Joan of Arc by Bruno Dumont, The Orphanage by Shahrbanoo Sadat and Song Without A Nameby Melina León

Three Luxbox titles to be showcased in Cannes
Joan of Arc by Bruno Dumont

Since its launch in 2016, the Parisian sales firm Luxbox has featured regularly in the various selections of big, international film events (notably with Rojo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Benjamín Naishtat
film profile
]
, Ray & Liz [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Richard Billingham
film profile
]
, A Ciambra [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jonas Carpignano
film profile
]
, Hedi [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and Apprentice [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, not to mention Mimosas [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Oliver Laxe
film profile
]
) and the 72nd Cannes Film Festival (running 14 to 25 May) will be no exception as three titles in the Luxbox line-up are set to be presented; three aces which the team led by Fiorella Moretti and Hedi Zardi intends to play to its advantage at the Marché du Film

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Luxbox, who were previously in attendance selling Jeannette, The Childhood of Joan of Arc [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile
]
(presented in 2017 at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight), will now be negotiating on behalf of the sequel directed by Bruno Dumont, Joan of Arc [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile
]
, which will have its world premiere as part of the Un Certain Regard programme. Similarly inspired by Charles Péguy’s work, The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc, and once again starring Lise Leplat Prudhomme in the lead role, the film takes the viewer back in time to the beginning of 1429, when the Hundred Years War was raging. Joan, vested with a spiritual mission to wage war, saves the town of Orléans and returns the Dauphin to the French throne. She then leaves to give battle in Paris where she suffers her first defeat. Imprisoned in Compiègne by the people of Burgundy, she is handed over to the English and so begins her trial in Rouen, led by Pierre Cauchon who tries to strip her of all credibility. True to her mission and denying the accusations of witchcraft levelled against her, Joan is convicted of heresy and sentenced to be burned at the stake. Produced by 3B Productions, Joan of Arc will be released in France on 11 September courtesy of Les Films du Losange

Also featuring in the Luxbox line-up are two films which are set to be unveiled during the Directors’ Fortnight competition. This won’t be the first time for the young Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat, as she presented her first full-length work, Wolf and Sheep [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Shahrbanoo Sadat
film profile
]
, in the same parallel Cannes Festival section in 2016. Her new opus, The Orphanage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Shahrbanoo Sadat
film profile
]
, is billed as a funny and profound musical, set at the end of the 1980s and centring on 15-year-old Qodrat, who lives on the streets of Kabul and sells cinema tickets on the black market. He’s a fan of Bollywood productions and likes to imagine himself in certain scenes of his favourite films. But, one day, he’s taken by the police into a Soviet orphanage. The political situation in Kabul is changing and Qodrat and the other children want to defend their homeland. Production was led by the Danish firm Adomeit Film and co-produced by the German subsidiary of the group, along with the French company La Fabrica Nocturna, Luxembourg outfit Samsa Film and the Afghan firm Wolf Pictures.

The second Luxbox title selected for the Directors’ Fortnight segment is Song Without A Name [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Melina León, her first feature film, which also delves into the 1980s, this time following in the wake of a young woman from the Andes whose new-born baby disappears and who sets out to find her infant, soon helped in her search by a journalist. Production was headed up by Peruvian outfit La Vida Misma Films alongside fellow countrymen co-producers La Mula Producciones, the Spanish firm MGC and Swiss group Bord Cadre Films

Among other titles peddled by the sales agent, Cannes’ Marché du Film will also see Luxbox negotiating on behalf of the Italian-Polish production Sole [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carlo Sironi
film profile
]
by Carlos Sironi (currently in post-production; read our article), as well as The Day After I’m Gone by the Israeli director Nimrod Eldar (discovered in the Panorama section of the Berlinale).

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(Translated from French)

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