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The Locarno Film Festival has set Alpine elegy movie “Fiore Mio” (“A Flower of Mine”) as its pre-opening event. It marks the first film written and directed by bestselling Italian novelist Paolo Cognetti (“The Eight Mountains”), who also stars.

Besides writing “Eight Mountains,” Cognetti was also “on set” when Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch shot the film adaptation of his book, which won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2022.

In “Flower of Mine,” Cognetti returns to similar Alpine settings, bringing along “Eight Mountains” cinematographer Ruben Impens as his Dp. The film depicts the Alpine landscapes and glaciers that are destined to disappear or change forever due to the climate crisis.

Cognetti was moved to make the doc when a drought during the summer of 2022 caused the spring near his home in Estoul — a small village located 1,700 meters above sea level overlooking the Brusson Alpine valley — to dry up.

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will debut 17 world premieres, including new works by Hong Sang-soo and Wang Bing, as part of its 2024 competition program. This year’s event runs from August 7 – 17.

The festival announced its competition lineups this morning. The Hong Sang-soo feature is titled Suyoocheon (By The Stream) and stars Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee. The Wang Bing feature is a France, Luxembourg, and Netherlands co-production titled Hard Times. Scroll down to see the full Locarno competition lineup, which also includes new titles from Ben Rivers, Mar Coll, and Christoph Hochhäusler.

The festival today also announced that French acting veterans Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet will receive the event’s honorary Excellence Award Davide Campari at the opening ceremony on August 7. Previous recipients of the award include Riz Ahmed and Aaron Taylor Johnson.

Locarno’s separate Piazza Grande lineup features 18 titles, including Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Ashkal: The Tunisian Investigation (Youssef Chebbi)

Realized with a formally exacting chilliness, Youssef Chebbi’s slow-burning noir concerns police officers investigating the mysteries behind corpses who have died from immolation. While the nebulous, metaphor-heavy script leaves much to be desired, Chebbi’s Cannes, TIFF, and Nd/Nf selection excels at conjuring an atmosphere of dread and isolation amidst a derelict apartment complex.

Where to Stream: VOD

Carpet Cowboys (Emily MacKenzie and Noah Collier)

The tiny city of Dalton, Georgia, has left a large footprint in the daily lives of millions who most wouldn’t have stopped for a second to consider. Well, it’s probably more appropriate to say that millions have left large footprints in Dalton’s biggest export: this city...

The Venice Gap-Financing Market (September 1-3), part of the Venice Production Bridge, will present 34 fiction and documentary projects.

The Venice Gap-Financing Market (September 1-3), part of the Venice Production Bridge, will present 34 fiction and documentary projects at the 80th Venice International Film Festival (August 30-Septmber 9), including a new project from Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir, All Before You.

All Before You offers a retelling of the 1963 farner-led revolt against British colonial rule in Palestine. Jacir’s previous director credits include The Oblivion Theory, which won the top prize at the Berlinale co-production market in 2021, Salt Of This Sea, Wajib and When I Saw You,...

The 10th edition of the Venice Gap-Financing Market, organized as part of the Venice Film Festival’s industry program Venice Production Bridge, has selected 62 projects in the final stages of development and funding.

Filmmakers taking projects to Venice include Jim Sheridan, an Oscar nominee with “In America,” “In the Name of the Father” and “My Left Foot”; Annemarie Jacir, whose credits include Cannes’ “Salt of This Sea,” Berlin’s “When I Saw You” and Locarno’s “Wajib”; Aisling Walsh, who directed “Maudie” with Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, and “Elizabeth Is Missing” with Glenda Jackson; and Kim Mordaunt, who won best debut at Berlin with “The Rocket.”

Also selected are Roberto Minervini, who directed Cannes’ “The Other Side” and Venice’s “What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?”; Laurynas Bareisa, who won the Venice Horizons Award for “Pilgrims”; Måns Månsson, who was in Berlin competition with “The Real Estate”; György Pálfi,...

New Feature projects by Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir, Ireland’s Aisling Walsh and Jim Sheridan as well as Romanian filmmaker Anca Damian have been selected for the upcoming edition of the Venice Gap-Financing Market.

The 10th edition of the co-financing meeting will run from Sept. 1 to 3 as part as of the Venice Production Bridge, which is the industry component of the Venice Film Festival (Aug 30 to Sept. 9)

The market will present 62 projects in the final stages of development and funding, selected from 280 submissions.

The selection spans 34 feature-length fiction Film and documentary projects, 14 Immersive projects, 11 Biennale College Cinema – Virtual Reality projects and three Biennale College Cinema projects.

To be eligible for inclusion, the fiction films must have at least 70% of funding in place and be looking for minority partners only.

Full List of Feature Film Projects:

After The Evil (doc) by Tamara Erde, Gloria Films Production All Before You (fiction), by Annemarie Jacir,...

Sony looks for ‘Love Again’, with Celine Dion’s first on-screen role.

Universal comedy sequel Book Club: The Next Chapter leads the openers at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, starting its story in 612 cinemas.

Directed by Bill Holderman and written by Holderman and Erin Simms, the film follows four best friends who take their book club to Italy for the girls trip they never had.

It is a sequel to 2018’s Book Club, also directed by Holderman, which Paramount released and which opened to £721,512 in 519 cinemas at a £1,390 average. The film finished on a £4.2m cume; The Next Chapter...

Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Italian-language drama The Eight Mountains and veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night topped the 68th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening.

The Eight Mountains won best film as well as best non-original screenplay, photography and sound.

Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, it stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as two men from different backgrounds who form a life-long bond during summers spent together as children in a remote mountain village.

The film world premiered in Competition at Cannes last year where it co-won the Jury Prize. Read the Deadline review here.

It is the second time in the history of the awards that a film by non-Italian directors has clinched the best film prize.

The last time was in 1971 when the Dino de Laurentiis-produced epic Waterloo by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk,...

Sideshow/Janus Films is estimating a $36k gross or $18k per theater average for The Eight Mountains on two NYC screens, the strongest opening weekend to date for the team behind Drive My Car and Eo.

The Cannes co-Jury Prize-winning film by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeesch follows the profound friendship over decades of Pietro (Luca Marinelli) from Turin, and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), who grew up in an isolated village in the Alps. It was Film at Lincoln Center’s highest-grossing new release opening of 2023 and marks the biggest per screen average of any new European release so far this year.

It’s is also the best opening of an Italian move Stateside since The Great Beauty, said producer Ira Deutchman. The Fine Line Features founder and Columbia prof is the head of Cinema Made In Italy, a initiative sponsored by Cinecitta’ that contributes P&a funds to Italian films for U.

Focus Features’ Sundance-premiering Polite Society opens on 927 screens, the feature debut of writer/director Nida Manzoor, creator of We Are Lady Parts, the Peacock comedy about the eponymous British punk rock band.

This comedic mash-up of sisterly affection, parental disappointment and bold action, where martial artist-in-training Ria Khan tryies to save her older sister from an impending marriage, is 91% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Deadline review here.

It’s joined by a handful of other specialty titles with theatrical debuts ranging from 900 screens to one, following a week where specialty and independent film was showered with kind words at CinemaCon, the annual exhibitor conference. Focus chair Peter Kujawksi called the specialty audience passionate and the market a launching pad for exceptional talent and “unique and elevated stories.” No disagreement there. He also said the specialty business has “recovered better and faster’’ out of Covid than the overall box office. Indie...

“I didn’t expect to find a friend like Bruno in my life. Nor that friendship was a place where you put down roots, that remains waiting for you.” It’s with these words, delivered in wistful voiceover, that Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch open “The Eight Mountains,” their sublime and gently aching adaptation of the Italian bestseller by Paolo Cognetti.

Set against the breathtaking mountain vistas of northwestern Italy, the film — which won the jury prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival — first explores the bond between two young boys, one visiting a village in the scenic Valle d’Aosta region over the summer and the other born there to cow-herder parents.

Continue reading ‘The Eight Mountains’ Directors On Their Acclaimed Cannes Friendship Drama, Filming in The Italian Alps & More [Interview] at The Playlist.

Editors note: This review was originally published May 18 after its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival where it co-won the Jury Prize. It opens in New York theaters Friday.

After breaking out internationally in 2012 with his Oscar-nominated drama The Broken Circle Breakdown, and making his Hollywood debut in 2018 with Beautiful Boy, Felix van Groeningen makes his Competition debut in Cannes with The Eight Mountains, perhaps the most understated film of his career so far.

This is a gentle tale of a decades-spanning friendship that seems a little out of its depth in such a heavyweight showcase. With terrific cinematography and two engaging leads, it’s easy on the eye — as well it should be at two hours and 27 minutes — but it’s lackluster in its telling and pales next to Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God, which covered similar themes of adolescence and young adulthood last awards season.

An intimate story of friendship projected across the vast alpine Italian landscape, Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains is a stirring, at times spiritual experience of reconnection on both human and environmental levels. Starring Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi, the decade-spanning story adapted from Paolo Cognetti’s novel gives its audience the proper space to breathe in the surroundings while our characters attempt to find a footing in their lives.

Ahead of the U.S. release of the Cannes winner, I had the pleasure of speaking with the Belgian directors about the complex process of crafting a Dutch script that was then translated into English and then into Italian, what their collaboration process entails, their personal connections to the film, setting the perfect pace, and their visual inspirations.

The Film Stage: I love the juxtaposition in the movie, where you have the most beautiful, vast surroundings possible,...

It can be surprisingly difficult to find a movie with an authentic, lived-in sense of how friendships truly unfold over the course of many years. What we so often get instead are hollow pastiches and tired tropes that hardly scrape the surface of what actually draws two individuals together from very different walks of life — and why. Maybe there's something to be said for a more matter-of-fact approach that gives such weighty topics room to grow, recede, and adapt at a glacial-like pace.

While that's usually considered a critique, this is at least one of the many reasons why "The Eight Mountains" stands in such stark relief from its peers. In the opening act set in 1984 Italy, two children become fast friends over the course of a single summer in the mountainous village of Grana — not through some shared trauma or because they instantly recognize some deep, soul-baring connection to one another.

After dabbling in the Hollywood drama with Beautiful Boy, Felix van Groeningen is back, reteaming with frequent collaborator and partner Charlotte Vandermeersch for her co-directorial debut. The Eight Mountains tells the story of estranged childhood friends who reconnect to fulfill the wishes of a recently deceased relative. Conveyed with an epic reverence for the beauty of the world, it’s also remarkable just how intimately keyed-in the directors are to this bond tested by lost time and societal differences. While this journey is perhaps long in the tooth, the Cannes Jury Prize winner is certainly worth seeing on the largest screen possible. Ahead of an April 28 release from Sideshow and Janus, the new trailer has now landed.

Jose Solis said in his review, “There must have been something in the air at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where two of the top prizes went to Belgian films about the impossible standards...

Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes last year, the U.S. trailer arrives today for Belgian directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains, adapted from the novel of the same name by Italian author Paolo Cognetti. The film stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as, respectively, Pietro and Bruno, two childhood best friends who first meet in the Italian Alps and then re-connect later in adulthood. The Eight Mountains will be released stateside this spring by Sideshow and Janus Films. The film’s official synopsis reads: Pietro, a city boy who visits the tiny mountain village of Grana […]

The post Trailer Watch: Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes last year, the U.S. trailer arrives today for Belgian directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains, adapted from the novel of the same name by Italian author Paolo Cognetti. The film stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as, respectively, Pietro and Bruno, two childhood best friends who first meet in the Italian Alps and then re-connect later in adulthood. The Eight Mountains will be released stateside this spring by Sideshow and Janus Films. The film’s official synopsis reads: Pietro, a city boy who visits the tiny mountain village of Grana […]

The post Trailer Watch: Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

As news about the 2023 Cannes lineup begins to trickle in, American audiences are finally getting a chance to catch up on some of the films that played at last year’s festival. Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s “The Eight Mountains” made waves when it competed for the Palme d’Or and won the Prix Jury prize in 2022, and now the film is just weeks away from premiering at arthouses in New York and Los Angeles.

The film tells the story of a close relationship between two young Italian boys who spent their childhoods together in a mountain village before going in different directions. At Cannes, critics praised the film’s attention to detail and the way it used elements of nature to conjure the feelings of magic that childhood friendships can create.

“Here, you feel it all, because there is so much heartfelt detail,” Ella Kemp wrote in...

There must have been something in the air at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where two of the top prizes went to Belgian films about the impossible standards set up by masculinity leading to tragedy. Lukas Dhont’s Close, which centers on the end of the friendship between two teenagers over a harrowing school year, won the Grand Prix. The Jury Prize went to Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains, which concerns the end of a friendship between two men who meet as boys during a summer that marks them for the rest of their lives.

Whatever its pictorial beauty, often significant, this adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s bestseller exemplifies my distaste for films that depict toxic masculinity without questioning it, or even suggesting there is nothing heroic or brave about refusing to leave behind damaging practices as long as they perpetuate some limited idea of what constitutes manhood.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights to Cannes Jury Prize winner “The Eight Mountains” by Belgian directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch.

The Italian-language film, which tracks the decades-long friendship between two Italian boys named Pietro and Bruno — one from the city, the other a shepherd boy from the Alps — was praised as “quietly magnificent” by Variety critic Jessica Kiang.

Kiang also praised the pic’s “slow, gradual accretion of detail that builds to a spectacular vista across the ridges and troughs, the spires and valleys of a lifelong, life-defining friendship.”

The drama about friendship, mountains, growing up, and our changed rapport with the planet in the wake of the pandemic stars Italian A-lister Luca Marinelli (“Martin Eden”) and Alessandro Borghi (“Devils”) — respectively as Pietro and Bruno — as well as Filippo Timi (“Vincere”) and Elena Lietti (“Three Floors”).

Based on an Italian novel of the same title by Paolo Cognetti,...

Click here to read the full article.

Sideshow and Janus Films have nabbed the North American rights to The Eight Mountains, the Cannes Jury Prize winner.

The film stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as unlikely friends whose lives are inextricably linked to the Alpine village of Aosta where they met as boys in this retelling of Paolo Cognetti’s novel. Sideshow and Janus Films plan a theatrical release at the end of the year.

Sideshow and Janus Films said: “We fell in love with The Eight Mountains, a sweeping, deeply moving film about friendship filled with heart and featuring tremendous performances by Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi. We are thrilled to collaborate with Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch, Mario Giannani and Lorenzo Gangarossa to bring this special film to North America,” Sideshow and Janus Films said in a joint statement.

The Eight Mountains is written and directed by van...

Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch co-directed and co-wrote epic tale of friendship.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights to Cannes jury prize winner The Eight Mountains directed by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch.

The story about a friendship spanning a lifetime in the Italian Alpine valley of Aosta is based on Paolo Cognetti’s award-winning novel of the same name and stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi, Filippo Timi, Elena Lietti and Elisabetta Mazzullo. Van Groeningen and Vandermeersch co-wrote the screenplay.

Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa produced for Wildside in co-production with Belgium’s Rufus and Menuetto,...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights to “The Eight Mountains,” a drama by Belgian filmmakers Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch that won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The companies, which teamed up to release last year’s Cannes and Oscar winner “Drive My Car,” plan to release the film in theaters at the end of the year.

Based on Paolo Cognetti’s novel, “The Eight Mountains” was written and directed by van Groeningen and Vandermeersch, whose “The Broken Circle Breakdown” was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (now Best International Feature Film) in 2013. Van Groeningen co-wrote and directed that film, and Vandermeersh collaborated on the screenplay. It is her first film as director.

Also Read:

‘The Eight Mountains’ Film Review: Belgian Male-Bonding Drama Is Impressively Unsentimental

The film spans three decades and stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights to Cannes 2022 Jury Prize winner The Eight Mountains for a theatrical release at the end of the year.

The New York-based distribution partners had a busy Cannes this year also acquiring Jerzy Skolimowski’s Eo, which shared the Jury Prize with The Eight Mountains; and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Tori And Lokita, which won the 75th Anniversary Prize at Cannes.

The Eight Mountains is written and directed by Oscar-nominated Belgian director Felix van Groeningen and his long-time collaborator and life partner Charlotte Vandermeersch.

Adapted from Italian writer Paolo Cognetti’s novel of the same name, the work follows the life-long friendship of two men from very different backgrounds against the backdrop of a remote valley in Italy’s mountainous Aosta Valley region. One is a boy from the city, the other the last child of a forgotten mountain village.

In adulthood,...

The 39th edition of the Munich Film Festival, which runs June 23-July 2, will screen 120 films from 52 countries, including 35 world premieres, such as “Paloma” by Marcelo Gomes, one of several films in the festival that tackles the subject of trans identities.

The three international competition sections will feature numerous highlights from the Cannes Film Festival, including “Corsage,” which opens the event. Vicky Krieps was honored in Cannes with the best actress award in the Un Certain Regard section for her performance as Empress Elisabeth of Austria, also known as “Sissi.”

Four films come to Munich fresh from Cannes’ main competition: “Leila’s Brothers” by Iranian director Saeed Roustayi, about a family’s struggle for survival in an Iran economically weakened by Western sanctions and consumed by corruption; “Pacifiction” by Albert Serra, in which Benoît Magimel excels as a conflicted police commissioner; “The Eight Mountains,” directed by Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix van Groeningen,...

This year’s Cannes Film Festival may have been punctuated by big titles from returning stars that already have distribution homes — like Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness,” David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future” (out this week!), or Claire Denis’ “The Stars at Noon” — and the wide variety of titles that picked up distribution while at the festival, but there are plenty of bright new gems that debuted on the Croisette that are still looking for smart buyers.

As ever, we’re more than happy to hand-pick a variety of films still up for sale and why we think they’d make some shingles very happy indeed. We’ve got known names, new stars, wild stories, and classic dramas to stump for, with plenty of reasons why they are so worthy of purchase.

As theaters keep looking for new ways to bring back audiences and...

Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s drama received an average score of 2.1.

Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains landed just below Tchaikovsky’s Wife on Screen’s jury grid with an average score of 2.1.

The adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s Italian bestseller follows a male friendship spanning three decades and stars Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi and Filippo Timi.

The Italian-language film received a mixed reception from our jurors with four scores of two (average) and three scores of three (good).

Click top left to expand

Le Monde’s Mathieu Macheret awarded the film a zero...

A meditation on our capacity for love shapes this sweeping story of two friends, torn apart by family and life’s journeys but bound by something deeper

This rich, beautiful and inexpressibly sad film is about the friendship between men who can’t talk about their feelings and about winning and losing at the great game of life. It is set in the breathtaking and wonderfully photographed Italian Alpine valley of Aosta, which includes the slopes of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. But the “eight mountains” of the title refers to the eight highest peaks of Nepal: a mysterious symbol of worldly ambition and conquest.

Belgian film-makers Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch have adapted the award-winning 2016 novel by Italian author Paolo Cognetti and have created a deeply intelligent meditation on our capacity for love, and how it is shaped by the arbitrary, irreversible experiences of childhood, and by our relationship with the landscape.

Mountains are not formed in an instant. Tectonic plates may buckle like the crumpling hoods of crashing cars, but it’s a collision that takes thousands of millennia to play out, and on a human timescale, seems infinitesimally slow. An inch here, a millimeter there, even the most imposing ranges were built in increments; rocky peaks rising pebble by pebble. It’s just one way that the vast, vertiginous landscapes of northwestern Italy so well suit Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s quietly magnificent “The Eight Mountains”: The film, too, is a slow, gradual accretion of detail that builds to a spectacular vista across the ridges and troughs, the spires and valleys of a lifelong, life-defining friendship.

Based on the award-winning Italian bestseller “Le Otto Montagne” by Paolo Cognetti, the movie is novelistic in the best sense. It immerses you in the world of its characters – both human...

For his follow-up to the 2018 addiction drama “Beautiful Boy,” Belgian filmmaker Felix van Groeningen and his life-and-creative partner, Charlotte Vandermeersch, have delivered an Italian-language literary adaptation that might sound at first like a rather familiar song, especially if you’ve seen that other melancholy tale about two men forming and fostering a life-defining love at a steep elevation.

Van Groeningen and Vandermeersch’s “The Eight Mountains” – which premiered in competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday – is more than just a Dudes Rock “Brokeback Mountain.” Still, there is something to the comparison. Not for any narrative likeness – as a story about friendship, “The Eight Mountains” explores a bond more fraternal than romantic. But on a thematic front, the two very different titles share a bittersweet belief that while our most profound relationships may lift us up, they all too rarely save us.

Adapted from Paolo Cognetti’s bestseller, this...

Friendship, mountains, growing up, and our changed rapport with the planet in the wake of the pandemic are the main elements in Cannes competition title “The Eight Mountains” by Belgian directors Felix van Groeningen (“Beautiful Boy”) and Charlotte Vandermeersch. (Watch the trailer above.)

The film is based on an Italian novel of the same title by Paolo Cognetti. It has won multiple awards in Italy and France and is also the author’s first book published in the U.S.

“The Eight Mountains” is a coming-of-age tale set over three decades about two young Italian boys — one, named Pietro, who is the son of a chemist, the other, Bruno, of a stonemason — who spend their childhoods together in a secluded Alpine village roaming the surrounding peaks and valleys before their paths diverge. Many years later, they reconnect in the same place.

The film marks the first foray into Italian-language filmmaking for Van Groeningen who,...

The Festival de Cannes has announced the lineup for the official selection, including the Competition and Un Certain Regard sections, as well as special screenings, for the 75th edition of the festival. See also the full lineups of Directors' Fortnight and Critics’ Week.Crimes of the FutureCOMPETITIONHoly Spider (Ali Abbasi): We follow family man Saeed as he embarks on his own religious quest — to “cleanse” the holy Iranian city of Mashhad of immoral and corrupt street prostitutes. After murdering several women, he grows ever more desperate about the lack of public interest in his divine mission.The Almond Tree (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi): The story takes place at the end of the 1980s. Stella, Victor, Adèle, Etienne are twenty years old. They pass the entrance examination for the famous school created by Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Romans at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre.Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg...

New titles join 47 unveiled at April 14 press conference and previously announced Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick.

Cannes Film Festival has added a flurry of new titles to its 2022 Official Selection, as promised by delegate general Thierry Frémaux at last week’s press conference unveiling the bulk of the titles due to premiere at its 75th edition, running May 17-28.

A total of 17 fresh additions were announced, joining the 47 films unveiled on April 14 as well as Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick, which were announced earlier. This brings the total number of films in selection so far to 66 against 83 in last year’s special July edition.

Belgian director Felix van Groeningen (“Beautiful Boy”) and Charlotte Vandermeersch have started shooting in the Alps on “The Eight Mountains,” an Italian drama based on a bestseller about male bonding set against a mountainous backdrop.

Vision Distribution will launch international sales of the film at the upcoming Cannes virtual market.

The film will be released in France by Pyramide Distribution and in Benelux by Kinepolis Film Distribution and Dutch FilmWorks.

Pic marks the first foray into Italian-language filmmaking for Van Groeningen who prior to “Beautiful Boy,” his English-language debut, broke out with Oscar-nominated “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” which is in Dutch, followed by “Belgica” winner of a prize at Sundance.

Van Groeningen has teamed up on “Eight Montains” with Vandermeersch, his partner in life, an actor and writer now making her directorial debut. They previously collaborated professionally on “Breakdown” on which she served as a co-writer.

“Bringing this deeply human,...

It will be co-written and co-directed by Belgium’s Charlotte Vandermeersch.

Beautiful Boy and The Broken Circle Breakdown director Felix van Groeningen is to co-write and co-direct a feature based on Paolo Cognetti’s Italian bestseller The Eight Mountains with Charlotte Vandermeersch for Rome-based production outfit Wildside.

It will be the first move into directing for Belgian actress Vandermeersch who has had roles in Groeningen’s Belgica, The Broken Circle Breakdown, The Misfortunates and With Friends Like These.

The Eight Mountains aims to shoot in the Italian Alps, Turin and Nepal this summer. No cast is attached yet.

The project...

The pair are working together on the film adaptation of the Italian bestseller by Paolo Cognetti. Paired up both romantically and professionally, Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch are getting stuck into the adaptation of The Eight Mountains, a novel by Italian author Paolo Cognetti, which won the Médicis Award for a Foreign Novel in 2017. They will write and direct this new project as a joint effort. The story revolves around city boy Pietro. One summer, when he’s 11, his parents rent a house in Grana, in the heart of the Aosta Valley. There, he makes friends with Bruno, a cowherd his age. They both roam tirelessly around the mountain pastures, exploring forests and craggy paths. Twenty years later, the young man will return to Grana to find refuge and attempt to make peace with his past. Vandermeersch is an actress and author: among other projects, she collaborated on...