News

Vincent Maël Cardona, whose 2021 pic “Magnetic Beats” won a prize at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and a Cesar Award for best first film, is set to direct “De Grâce,” a sprawling crime thriller unfolding in the northern French port city of Le Havre.

The series is being co-produced and commissioned by Arte France, and is produced by Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin at Ego Productions, a Mediawan company. Belgium’s Savage Films is co-producing. Mediawan Rights is representing the show in international markets.

Set to start shooting on location in Le Havre on Aug. 8, “De Grâce” features a strong ensemble cast including Olivier Gourmet (“The Minister”), Margot Bancilhon (“Five”), Panayotis Pascot (“Mon chien stupide”), Pierre Lottin (“Notre-Dame on Fire”), Astrid Whettnall (“Baron noir”), Philippe Rebbot.(“L’amour flou”) and French rapper Gringe.

“De Grâce,” penned by Maxime Crupaux (“Cherif”) and Baptiste Fillon, tells the story of Pierre Leprieur (Gourmet), a native of Le Havre who...

Top European industry players including senior executives from Pathé Films, Mikros, Wild Bunch Distribution and Warner Bros. have joined forces to launch a one-stop-shop production banner called N9ne Studio. The outfit plans to invest over €30 million (31 million) over the next five years to fully finance content development.

The pan-European hub is being launched in association with Ikav Group, a thriving asset management company chaired by Constantin von Wasserschleben and headquartered in Germany with offices in Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the U.K., the U.S. and France. Advised by Cinecapital, Schubert Collin, Rbb and Taylor Wessing, N9ne Studio will focus on the development and co-production of films and TV series.

The company is being created by Gilles Gaillard, the co-founder of Mikros Animation who collaborated on

“Sponge Bob” and ”Asterix;” the financiers Stéphane Marchi and Terry Keeley, producers Vincent

Roget, the former bosses of Pathé Films Romain Le Grand...

New Indie

The critically-acclaimed “Aviva” (Outsider/Strand) casts both male and female dancers as both of the romantic leads, throwing out conventions of gender and sexuality in a love story that features some gorgeous choreography. Boaz Yakin’s film was programmed at the 2020 SXSW festival, and the Blu-ray features behind-the-scenes footage of dance rehearsals.

Also available: Stand-up Steve Byrne wrote and directed the comics-on-the-road saga “The Opening Act” (Rlje Films), featuring such industry vets as Jimmy O. Yang, Alex Moffat, Cedric the Entertainer, Bill Burr, and Whitney Cummings; “Buddy Games” (Saban/Paramount) stars Josh Duhamel and Dax Shepard in an ensemble comedy about estranged friends enduring a ridiculous competition for a $150,000 prize; a newly sober carpenter tries to build a home and establish a life in “Major Arcana” (Gde/Kino Lorber).

New Foreign

Melina León’s Cannes fave “Song Without a Name” (Film Movement), about an indigenous woman trying to...

Rare is the movie about writer’s block that doesn’t end with the frustrated author scrapping his dead-end drafts in order to “write what you know” — i.e., the film we’ve just sat through. More uncommon still is the dog movie that doesn’t rely on its canine lead to warm hearts, jerk tears or teach its owner important lessons about his humanity. So let’s start by giving the French midlife-crisis drama “My Dog Stupid” credit for doing something different with the trite conventions of the two feel-good categories to which it belongs.

Writer-director Yvan Attal has made three films with real-life wife Charlotte Gainsbourg — “My Wife Is an Actress,” “Happily Ever After” and now this — and with each movie, he sands away still more of the mystique that surrounds celebrity couples. Here, he plays Henri Mohen, the literary equivalent of a one-hit wonder, coasting on the...