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PRODUCTION France

Filming imminent on the rural, fantasy picture Teddy

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- Anthony Bajon and Noémie Lvovsky star in the second feature film by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma, a Baxter Films and Les Films Velvet production sold by WTFilms

Filming imminent on the rural, fantasy picture Teddy
Actor Anthony Bajon

Unearthed by way of their first full-length title Willy 1er [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(which they co-directed alongside Marielle Gautier and Hugo P. Thomas and which was unveiled within Cannes’ 2016 ACID line-up, before bagging itself a Special Mention from the Directors’ Jury at MyFrenchFilmFestival in 2018) and having authored three short films which did the rounds in the Clermont-Ferrand Festival competition (La Naissance du monstre in 2018, Ich Bin Eine Tata and Perrault, La Fontaine, mon cul ! in 2015), Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma will begin shooting their second feature film Teddy [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
this Monday 3 June.

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Headlining the cast will be Anthony Bajon (named Best Actor in Berlin last year for The Prayer [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cédric Kahn
film profile
]
, recently well-received in You Deserve A Lover [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hafsia Herzi
film profile
]
, which screened in Cannes’ Critics Week, and gracing French movie theatres as of 25 September in Au nom de la terre and, at a later date, in Merveilles à Montfermeil), flanked by Noémie Lvovsky (nominated for a Best Actress César in 2013 for Camille Rewinds [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and a further six times since 2002 in the category of Best Supporting Role; also hitting the big screen on 16 October in Play), while the remainder of the cast will be composed of non-professionals.

Written by the Boukherma brothers themselves, the script (which scooped the Junior Award at the 32nd edition of the Best Screenplay Awards last month) sets the scene from the outset: a blazing sun, symmetrical dwellings lost amid rolling fields, and a wolf which is arousing the ire of many a local farmer. Teddy, 19 years old, lives at his uncle’s house and works nights in a petrol station. His girlfriend Rebecca, who is 17 years old, will soon sit her Baccalauréat exam. As far as they’re concerned, it’s set to be a summer no different from any other. But then, one hot night on the edge of a wood, Teddy is scratched by an animal, most probably the wolf. As the weeks go by, he slowly find himself overcome by strange animal impulses …

As emphasised in the directors’ statement, "what we want is for our monster to develop within the French countryside, with all its old people and their accents, with its Renault Kangoos and its village town hall bingo. In short, we want to make a fantasy film, yes, but we also want to anchor it in the rural France of 2019. As we film in this part of the countryside, we’re also filming the local context itself; where the good life and long-held traditions exist alongside social and intellectual poverty, and where the chronic absence of prospects and the ostracization of a certain section of the young population is causing the latter great anger."

Produced by Pierre-Louis Garnon for Baxter Films and by Frédéric Jouve on behalf of Les Films Velvet (who previously partnered up on Willy 1er), Teddy has been pre-purchased by Canal+ and Ciné+. Also benefitting from the support of the SOFICA company Indéfilms and the Occitanie region in France, the feature film will be shot between 3 June and 12 July in the Pyrénées-Orientales department (between Céret and Le Boulou in France). Negotiations over French distribution are at a very advanced stage, while international sales are in the hands of WTFilms.

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(Translated from French)

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