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CANNES 2006 Un Certain Regard / France

Murderers or Pialat's ghost

by 

An air of nostalgia reigned yesterday afternoon in Un Certain Regard with Patrick Grandperret’s Murderers [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, a film based on an original idea by Maurice Pialat (winner of the Golden Palm at Cannes in 1987).

In fact, Sylvie Pialat, the wife of the French director who passed way in 2003, produced the film with her production outfit Les Films du Worso. She then entrusted the project to Grandperret, who started out as Maurice Pialat's assistant. The story was inspired by a real-life event and centres around two young girls who plotted death in the surroundings of La Rochelle.

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Concentrating on what preceded the first murder committed by Nina (Hande Kodja) and Lizzy (Céline Salette), Grandperret first recounts the paths leading up to their fortuitous meeting in a psychiatric hospital. The first has to cope with the burden of her father's death, struck by a heart attack while having an argument, while the second girl wants to commit suicide.

Upon escaping from the mental hospital, the two women roam about for a few days, broke and searching for a place where they can just take a shower. They find themselves at the mercy of the various characters they encounter, in particular men wanting to exploit their weak situation.

Toughened and made accomplices by the adversity of a world that seems to reject them, they turn to murder in an attempt to defend themselves against rape. What initially seems like a rock and roll adventure to them (sleeping on the beach, breaking into a house, flirting with the idea of becoming prostitutes, dreaming of faraway places) ends in blood on a road in the middle of the night.

The €2.21m Murderers received a €410,000 advance on receipts from the CNC, co-production funding from StudioCanal and Emaël Films, a pre-sales agreement from Canal+ and Ciné Cinéma, as well as funding from Sofica EuropaCorp. Sold internationally by Wild Bunch, the film will be released in France on June 28 by Pan Européenne.

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(Translated from French)

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