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PRODUCTION / FUNDING France

Arte France Cinéma throws its weight behind Tarik Saleh’s Boy from Heaven

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- The upcoming opus by Albert Serra and the feature debut by Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet will also be co-produced by the French-German channel’s film arm

Arte France Cinéma throws its weight behind Tarik Saleh’s Boy from Heaven
Director Tarik Saleh

Arte France Cinéma’s first selection committee of 2020 (headed up by Olivier Père) has chosen to get involved in three projects as a co-producer and by means of pre-purchases.

Standing out among them is Boy from Heaven [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tarik Saleh
film profile
]
, which will be the fourth feature by Swedish director of Egyptian heritage Tarik Saleh, following Metropia [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(first revealed in the Venice International Film Critics’ Week in 2009), Tommy [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(2014) and The Nile Hilton Incident [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tarik Saleh
film profile
]
(Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance in 2017 and the winner of five Guldbagge Awards in 2018, including Best Swedish Film of the Year). The filmmaker will once again be working with topliner Fares Fares (winner of the 2018 Guldbagge Award for Best Actor for The Nile Hilton Incident and equally well known for various instalments of the Department Q and Easy Money franchises) to make a political thriller that will unfold in a prestigious religious university in Cairo. On the first day back after the summer holidays, the grand imam collapses and dies in front of his students. This marks the start of a ruthless battle for influence to take his place. “I want to open Pandora’s box and take the audience along with me, showing a world that’s embedded in a wider universe, which no camera has yet filmed. Strictly speaking, it’s not a film about Islam, but rather about ideology and the war of ideas. It’s more of a political proposition than a religious one,” declared Tarik Saleh on the subject of Boy from Heaven. The shoot will take place in August 2020 in Morocco and Sweden, and production duties have been entrusted to France’s Memento Film Production, Sweden’s Atmo, Morocco’s Kasbah Film and Finland’s Bufo.

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Arte France Cinéma has also selected Bora Bora [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Albert Serra
film profile
]
(working title) by Spaniard Albert Serra, who has Liberté [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Special Jury Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard last year), Last Days of Louis XIV [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Albert Serra
film profile
]
(an Official Selection special screening on the Croisette in 2016), Story of My Death [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Albert Serra
film profile
]
(Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2013), Birdsong and Honour of the Knights (Quixotic) [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(unveiled in the Directors’ Fortnight in 2008 and 2006, respectively) under his belt, among other titles. The screenplay of his next opus is set on an island in the Pacific and tells a story of thwarted love between a French diplomat (to be played by Benoît Magimel) and a Polynesian author, all set against a backdrop of racial tension, political crises and espionage. The feature is being staged by Idéale Audience (France), Andergraun Films (Spain), Rosa Filmes (Portugal) and Lupa Film (Germany), and the shoot is scheduled to take place from mid-June.

Lastly, Arte France Cinéma will be supporting the feature debut by Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet, entitled Anaïs in Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
film profile
]
. The director will be assembling a cast consisting of Anaïs Demoustier and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi for this comedy about the complicated romances of a thirty-something drifter of a woman, who is suddenly hassled by her lover’s wife. As a reminder, the film was one of the projects of the fifth year group that took part in the Next Step programme run by the Cannes Critics’ Week and has already been supported by the CNC’s advance on receipts. The Les Films Pelléas and Année Zéro production will be shot next summer.

For the record, Arte France Cinéma is backing the upcoming movies by Mia Hansen-Løve, Leos Carax, Philippe Garrel, Alain Guiraudie, Mathieu Amalric, Miguel Gomes, Joachim Trier, Nadav Lapid, Abderrahmane Sissako, Lisandro Alonso, Jonas Carpignano, Kirill Serebrennikov, Lav Diaz, Julia Ducournau, Thierry de Peretti, Arthur Harari, Leyla Bouzid, Aurélia Georges, Vincent Le Port, Just Philippot, Bruno Podalydès, Thomas Balmès, Hafsia Herzi, Chloé Mazlo, Dinara Droukarova, Chen Bo Yilin, Dror Moreh, and duo Rana Kazkaz and Anas Khalaf, as well as animated films helmed by Florence Miailhe and Pierre Földes.

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(Translated from French)

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