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10 months ago
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Studiocanal rolled out the red carpet at the Unifrance Paris Rendez-vous this week for actor Gilles Lellouche’s upcoming feature film Beating Hearts (L’Amour Ouf).
First images for the unconventional romance played on the big screen to two packed-out screenings at the swanky Royal Monceau hotel off the Champs-Elysées on Thursday evening.
The modern Romeo and Juliet tale co-stars François Civil, who is currently riding high on the back of his D’Artagnan role in Pathé’s Three Musketeers reboot, and Adèle Exarchopoulos as former childhood sweethearts from different sides of the tracks.
Having gone their separate ways when the boy gets caught up in gang violence and lands in jail on trumped-up murder charges, the pair reconnect against the odds years later.
The picture is adapted from Irish writer Neville Thompson’s 1997 novel Jackie Loves Johnser OK? unfolding against the backdrop of Dublin’s tough suburb of Ballyfermot in the 1980s
Lellouche has transposed the story to France, co-writing the screenplay with Ahmed Hamidi, his collaborator on 2018 comedy Sink Or Swim, and Venice Golden Lion winner Audrey Diwan.
The actor-director also stopped by the Studiocanal event with Exarchopoulos and Civil as well as supporting cast members Mallory Wanecque, Vincent Lacoste and Jean-Pascal Zadi.
He explained that actor Benoît Poelvoorde had first introduced him to the work 15 years ago.
“I fell in love with this book and this story about a violent love story. I jumped into this adventure with Ahmed Hamidi and Audrey Diwan,”
He paid tribute to his producers, Hugo Sélignac at Chi-Fou-Mi (The Stronghold, November) and Alain Attal (Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom) at Trésor Films for getting behind him on the project.
“I am so happy to work with them because this project is quite crazy, so I need crazy producers to follow me,” he said.
The promo images suggest a bold, colorful portrait of bloody, passionate love story oscillating between the couple’s semi-innocent teenage years and their more violent reunion against the backdrop of an evocative, rights-cleared $1M 1980s soundtrack featuring tunes such as Billy Idol’s Eyes Without A Face.
Studiocanal is presenting the film as one of its most ambitious French language films to date and behind the scenes, Cannes is an objective if post-production is finished in time.
Beating Heats was among alongside a trio of titles rolled out by Studiocanal at the Unifrance Paris Rendez-vous this year alongside Marjane Satrapi’s Paris Paradis and Pablo Agüero’s Saint-Exupéry.
Paris Paradis pays tribute to the Tehran-born Satrapi’s adopted city and stars Monica Bellucci, Rossy De Palma, Eduardo Noriega, André Dussollier, Alex Lutz and Roschdy Zem, while Saint-Exupéry, revolves around a pivotal Argentinian Andes episode in the legendary aviator’s life with Louis Garrel, Diane Kruger and Vincent Cassel in the cast.
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