28/05/2020 - The Hauts-de-France region will also back films in production Soumission by Guillaume Nicloux, Saint Omer by Alice Diop and Murder Party by Nicolas Pleskof

Three feature films have been earmarked for production support during the latest funding session held by Pictanovo, the Hauts-de-France’s regional agency dedicated to film and audiovisual creation. Shining bright among them is Little Man Tom [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which will be Fabienne Berthaud’s 5^th full-length work following Frankie [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2006), Lily Sometimes [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Directors’ Fortnight 2010), Sky [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Toronto’s Platform competition in 2015) and A Bigger World [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fabienne Berthaud
film profile] (Venice Days in the Venice Film Festival 2019).

Written by the director alongside Gladys Marciano and Pascal Arnold, the screenplay is an adaptation of Barbara Constantine’s novel Tom petit Tom tout petit homme Tom. The story revolves around 11-year-old Tom who lives in an old mobile home with his young mother, Joss. With her love for parties and weekends away with friends, Tom often finds himself alone, and he has to fend for himself. In order to eat, he steals from his neighbours’ vegetable gardens. But, as he’s scared of getting caught and being referred to social services, he’s very careful. One evening, while searching out a new garden for his regular food-shop, he comes across (ninety-three- year-old) Madeleine, lying down in the middle of her cabbages and crying because she can’t get up. She’d no doubt be dead, the poor old dear, if it hadn’t been for Tom passing by that night...

Set to be backed by Pictanovo to the tune of €230,000, the film project is steered by Parisian firm Rhamsa Productions (Maya Hariri and Joffrey Hutin), whose works include Les Petits Princes [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and who co-produced When Pigs Have Wings [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Pictanovo will also lend its support to Guillaume Nicloux’s Soumission, an adaptation of Michel Houellebecq’s novel of the same name which was announced during Berlin’s most recent European Film Market (read our news) and is steered in production by Incognita Films.

Likewise gracing the list of the lucky chosen few is Alice Diop’s Saint Omer [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alice Diop
interview: Kayije Kagame
film profile], an SRAB Films production already enjoying the backing of Arte France Cinéma (article) and an advance on receipts from the CNC.

A final point worth noting is that Pictanovo has extended its support for Nicolas Pleskof’s project Murder Party, helmed by Kazak Productions. The filmmaker’s first feature film (a product of the Screenwriting Workshop organised by La Fémis) will home in on Jeanne, a brilliant and unstoppable architect who finds herself entrusted with the renovation of a manor house belonging to the Daguerre family, who head up a board games empire. When the patriarch is found murdered, the assassin, hidden among the residents, suggests a game to uncover his identity…

(Translated from French)