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INDUSTRY / MARKET France

Le Groupe Ouest unveils its 2021 Annual Selection

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- Among the auteurs selected to participate in the writing residency in Brittany are the duo Çağla Zencirci - Guillaume Giovanetti and eight young filmmakers working on feature debut projects

Le Groupe Ouest unveils its 2021 Annual Selection

The leading European writing residence for cinema and fiction for several years, Le Groupe Ouest has unveiled its 2021 Annual Selection and the list of auteurs selected for this new edition of the nine month residency. The selection will be supervised by a team of consultants headed by Marcel Beaulieu and which includes Atiq Rahimi, Claire Barré and Pierre Hodgson. After a 2020 edition which successfully adapted to the health crisis (read the news), the 2021 residency begins today with the first of its three sessions in a physical format (while following distancing and health measures of course).

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Standing out from this 2021 Selection is the duo Çağla Zencirci - Guillaume Giovanetti with Chen & Gan, their third feature project, following Noor [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(unveiled in Cannes in 2012, in the ACID programme) and the award-winning Sibel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Çağla Zencirci and Guillaum…
film profile
]
(in competition in Locarno in 2018 and screened in Toronto among other festivals). The Turkish-French couple wrote the script of this new project together with Delphine Agut and its story is set in a Bosphorus island and a Roma neighbourhood in Istanbul.

All the other projects selected this year are feature debuts: Immaculées from Belgian-American director Bérangère Mc Neese (pre-selected for the 2021 César award for best short film with Matriochkas – read our interview), Les exilés meurent aussi d’amour by Marie Le Floc'h, Destination rose bonbon by director of American origins Marina Ziolkowski (co-written with Luli Barzman), Les fantômes by Jonathan Millet (a filmmaker who comes from documentary filmmaker and who is working on a spy film), Zineb, reine du désastre by Khalil Cherti (with the issue of the environment at the heart of the story), Quatre août by Martin Soudan and My Road from Belgian directors Julien and Simon Dara.

Short synopses of the projects:

Zineb, reine du désastre - Khalil Cherti
A woman who had seen her father abandon her as well as her family and his hometown, and who is hired to work in the communications department of the mayor’s office, accidentally sets fire to the dilapidated building she grew up in and which was set to be refurbished and transformed into a mall. To correct her mistake and to save her neighborhood, she decides to do everything she can to reinvent this place the way someone would rebuild their home. On this journey, environmental activists including her father might ultimately help her avoid the worst. But seeing her father and these activists arrive in her neighbourhood is like a family reunion: never without risks.

My Road - Julien and Simon Dara
At fifty years old, Céline is the head gatekeeper of an icy road in the Canadian Great North. Married to David and the mother of two children, she takes care of her family the best she can. But without knowing it, the arrival of a new friend will turn her life upside down.

Les exilés meurent aussi d’amour - Marie Le Floc'h
Sousan and her daughter Rim have been living in exile in France since the arrest and  incarceration of Jawad during the Syrian revolution, after one of the 2011 protests. They have attempted to reconstruct their lives during these last seven years. But the fragile balance of their existence falls apart on the day they learn of his release, the two of them having tried to keep many unanswered questions buried. The return of this man, broken by an indescribable trauma, will profoundly disturb them and push them to face their own difficulties in staying alive and the limits of their resilience.

Immaculées - Bérangère Mc Neese
Héloïse is 17 years old and fleeing an abusive relationship with an older man. By chance in the street, she meets Melo, a young woman in her thirties whose humour helps her get out of tricky situations. As the sun sets, Melo offers Héloïse to come sleep at her place, where there are four women, each as free as they are damaged, yet giving out an appearance of real strength. The rest of the world becomes their playground, their adversary. One of them, Nora, also lives with her young son. Nora fascinates Héloïse, and she knows it. The girls have set up some rules, both practical and ideological, for their community, and Héloïse learns them. With these women, she grows up. But Nora remains a destructive element, eaten away by her own demons. The wounds have created anger, but also an immeasurable force.

Les fantômes - Jonathan Millet
Hamid is part of a small group of Syrian citizens who left the country to hunt war criminals. They travel through Europe to search for the people on the run responsible for the regime. Against the group’s opinion, Hamid follows the trail of Harfaz, his former torturer, alone in Strasbourg. His quest will plunge him back into his deepest wounds and jeopardise his role as a spy despite himself.

Quatre août - Martin Soudan
A large house by the seaside in Brittany. Every year, that is where the Beaumont family reconvenes, for the month of August. A house that transcends time, a stage on which the life of a family plays out, during four summers, between 1993 and 2018. We live these four summers mostly through the eyes of Matthieu, a discreet but very observing and sensitive child, and Claire, one of his mother’s friends who comes every year to spend the holidays with this family. Together, they will form a particular bond, invisible to others but which will allow them both to move forward in their lives.

Chen & GanÇagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti
Istanbul, current day. Roman, the 35-year-old leader of a Roma clan, must find Sinem, his 17-year-old sister who has fled her marriage, in order to appease the tensions in his community. During his search, Roman meets Anka, a former martial arts athlete aged 32 who heads the women's shelter on an island of the Bosphorus, where Simen has found refuge. Anka has another vision of the future for Sinem, one which contradicts Roman’s plans. When Sinem once again disappears, Roman and Anka have no choice but to join forces in order to find her. Although everything sets them apart and they should hate each other, Roman and Anka fall in love... Their journey will echo the legend of Chen & Gan: 2,000 years ago, this couple, who belonged to different castes in India, had to face the hostility of their peers and to choose exile in order to live out their love, creating the "Chen-Gan" tribe, which became "Tzigane"...

Destination rose bonbon - Marina Ziolkowski (co-written with Luli Barzman)
Alice (22) and Gina (62) are neighbours and they hate each other. While Alice is ambitious, conformist and stuck up, Gina is artistic, rebellious and egoistical. Their lives suddenly change when they become ill, one of them with a chronic illness, the other with cancer. They find themselves with no choice but to leave together. It is during this road trip that Alice and Gina, fighting or laughing, dramatically arguing or completely quiet, move forward, alternately looking for therapies for Alice and for artistic marriage prospects for Gina. A great many adventures await them…

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(Translated from French)

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