10/04/2019 - Pierre Földes has emerged triumphant with his Murakami adaptation; a Special Award went to Vincent Le Port for Bruno Reidal, and the Junior Award to Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma for Teddy

Director Pierre Földes

The jury of the 32nd edition of the Screenplay Award, chaired by Jean-Paul Salomé, has singled out Pierre Földes for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pierre Földes
film profile]. An adaptation of the collection of short stories of the same name by famous Japanese author Haruki Murakami, this animated project, which has been followed very closely since it was first launched at the Berlin Co-Production Market in 2016 (see the news), and which is being staged by Cinéma Defacto and Miyu Productions, will enter production this summer, boasting support from the CNC’s advance on receipts, among other sources. The storyline kicks off in Tokyo, several days after the 2011 tsunami. Kyoko abruptly leaves her husband after watching the images of the earthquake for five days in a row. Her distraught spouse, Komura, embarks on a voyage to the North, where he intends to deliver a box with mysterious contents to two young women. His workmate Katagiri, a humble debt collection agent, returns home one evening only to find himself face to face with a two-metre-high toad who asks Katagiri to help him save Tokyo from another earthquake that is about to strike. Through memories, dreams and fantasies, Kyoko, Komura and Katagiri, all of whom are affected by their own visions of the earthquake – in the guise of evil willow trees, a giant earthworm, a secret vow, a mysterious box and an endless, dark corridor – try to somehow reconnect with themselves…

The jury handed a Special Award to Vincent Le Port for Bruno Reidal [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vincent Le Port
film profile], a feature-debut project that has also been backed by the CNC’s advance on receipts (see the news), while the Junior Award was bestowed upon a genre-film project: Teddy [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma. The duo, who turned heads with Willy 1^er [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (co-directed with Hugo Thomas and Marielle Gautier), is also handling production duties via Baxter Films and will be partnering up once again with Les Films Velvet for a new opus set to star Anthony Bajon (The Prayer [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cédric Kahn
film profile]) and Noémie Lvovsky, among others. The plot is as follows: the sun beats down. Symmetrical houses stand out in the middle of the fields. A wolf incurs the wrath of the local livestock farmers. Nineteen-year-old Teddy lives with his uncle and works nights in a petrol station. His girlfriend, 17-year-old Rébecca, will soon be taking her A levels. To them, it looks set to be a pretty ordinary summer. But one sweltering night on the edge of a forest, Teddy is scratched by an animal – probably the wolf. In the weeks that follow, he is overcome with strange, animalistic urges.

(Translated from French)