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PRODUCTION / FUNDING Germany / France

Matthias Luthardt is shooting Luise

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- The Pingpong director is making his return to fiction with a feature film steered by 27 Films Production in league with Les Films de L’Étranger, and sold by Pyramide International

Matthias Luthardt is shooting Luise
Director Matthias Luthardt

Revealed at Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2006 and nominated within the European Film Award’s Discovery category for his first feature film Pingpong [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Matthias Luthardt
interview: Sebastian Urzendowsky
film profile
]
, German director Matthias Luthardt is currently in the vicinity of Gérardmer, in France - and will continue to be so until mid-October - for the filming of his second fiction film Luise.

Having previously branched off into the field of documentaries, the director has now gathered together a cast comprising French actress Christa Theret (nominated for the 2014 Best Actress Lumière by way of Renoir [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christa Théret
film profile
]
, following on from two earlier nominations, in 2010 and 2012, for the César for Best Female Newcomer), alongside Germany’s Luise Aschenbrenner (Fabian – Going to the Dogs [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Albrecht Schuch
film profile
]
) and her compatriot Leonard Kunz (The Most Beautiful Couple [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sven Taddicken
film profile
]
).

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Written by Sebastian Bleyl and inspired by British author D. H. Lawrence’s novella The Fox, the story takes us back to autumn 1918 and to an isolated farm in the hills, not far from the peaks of the Vosges mountains, on the Alsatian side of the divide. Young and pious Protestant woman Luise is still in shock from the sudden death of her mother when a French woman called Hélène, who is being followed by a German solider named Hermann, takes refuge in her home. Despite their many differences, the three of them will be forced to cohabit. And, little by little, the tension begins to rise…

Produced by Oliver Damian on behalf of German firm 27 Films Production and by Philippe Avril on behalf of France’s Les Films de L’Étranger, Luise is bolstered by the French-German co-production mini-treaty (steered by the CNC and the FFA), and is also supported by Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR)/ARTE, by the Grand Est, Berlin-Brandebourg (MBB) and Bade-Wurtemberg (MFG) regions, and by the Eurométropole of Strasbourg, not to mention Vosges’ departmental council and the Strasbourg-based companies Will Production and La Cinéfiliale. Distribution in France will be managed by Pyramide Films while Salzgeber will oversee the film’s release in Germany. Sales are in the hands of Pyramide International.

The afore-mentioned German firm is also developing the Gold Train series which has just been pitched at Séries Mania and is set to be directed by Matthias Luthardt.

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(Translated from French)

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