Deadline reports that Cannes Film Festival competition entry Redoubtable (Le redoutable) has sold to Cohen Media Group. The distributor has picked up domestic rights to the title, the latest from Oscar winning filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist). The French film – a biographical love story centered on iconic French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard – made its world premiere at the continuing Cannes Film Festival.
In the film, Louis Garrel (Saint Laurent and also seen in this year’s Cannes opener Ismael’s Ghosts), headlines as the audacious and innovative filmmaker and chronicles when he met and fell in love with 17-year old actress Anne Wiazemsky on the set of the film La Chinoise. Stacy Martin (High-Rise) plays Wiazemsky. Also in the cast is Bérénice Bejo, who was Oscar-nominated for her work in The Artist and who headlined Hazanavicius’ 2014 film The Search (which hasn’t yet opened in the United States); Bejo also won the Best Actress prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for her role in Asghar Farhedi’s The Past. She is also married to Hazanavicius.
Appropriately, as was the case for The Artist, Redoubtable appears as an ode to cinema, even if unlike The Artist, the early reviews have been somewhat mixed. Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman called the film, “A lightly audacious and fascinating movie (if not exactly one to warm your heart),” while Todd McCarthy wrote in The Hollywood Reporter: “Serious cinephiles will likely reject it as glib and disrespectful, while more mainstream viewers could be amused but not that interested.” Eric Kohn from IndieWire said of the film: “The main triumph of Hazanavicius’ film is that it makes [Godard] human.”
It’s unknown at this time when the film will open theatrically.
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