Deadline’s International Grand Tour Series Kicks Off With Bleecker Street’s ‘Hard Truths’; Screenings Set For London, Paris, Rome & Copenhagen

Deadline is proud to launch its new International Grand Tour series which will kick off with Bleecker Street’s Hard Truths, the latest feature from legendary British filmmaker Mike Leigh. The film, which sees Leigh reunite with his Secrets & Lies actors Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin, will screen across four major European cities – London, Paris, Rome and Copenhagen – followed by a Q&A with Jean-Baptiste. (Leigh will also join the Q&A for the London edition).

Hard Truths, which is being released nationwide in the U.S. on January 10, sees Leigh return to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way. 

Meanwhile, her easy-going younger sister, played by Austin (Another Year), is a single mother with a life as different from Pansy’s as their clashing temperaments – brimming with communal warmth from her salon clients and daughters alike. It’s an expansive film from a master dramatist that takes audiences into the intensities of kinship, duty, and the most enduring of human mysteries: that even through lifetimes of hurt and hardship, we still find ways to love those we call family. 

The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, sees Jean-Baptiste reunite with Leigh for the first time since the 1996 title Secrets & Lies. That film not only won the Cannes Palme d’Or that year, but went on to earn five Oscar-nominations, including one for Jean-Baptiste for Best Supporting Actress. 

Hard Truths is Leigh’s highest scoring title to date on Rotten Tomatoes, currently sitting at 96% and Jean-Baptiste’s performance has been hailed by critics with Deadline’s Pete Hammond saying she “carries the film on her shoulders and she is magnificent…if you want to watch acting of the highest order look no further.” 

The International Grand Tour for Hard Truths will kick off on December 9 in London at the Curzon Bloomsbury before moving to Le Royal Monceau – Raffles in Paris on December 10, the Cinema Quattro Fontaine in Rome on December 11 and the Empire Cinema in Copenhagen on December 13. 

To attend the screenings, please email hardtruthstour@ddaem.com.