13/10/2020 - Isabelle Huppert, Lars Eidinger and Swann Arlaud star in the cast of the filmmaker’s second feature, which is produced by 2.4.7 Films with Gifted Films and Blinder Films, and is sold by Playtime

Actress Isabelle Huppert and actors Lars Eidinger and Swann Arlaud

Having kicked off with a week of filming in the German city of Cologne, About Joan [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laurent Larivière
film profile], Laurent Larivière’s second feature film after I Am A Soldier [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laurent Larivière
film profile] (well-received in Cannes 2015’s Un Certain Regard line-up), has just finished its four-week film-shoot in France (Lyon) and will wrap with six days filming in Ireland (Dublin), as of 29 October, once the entire team has completed their 14-day quarantine. The film’s journey through three European countries has been complicated by the current Coronavirus context, because whilst there’s a compensation fund in France to protect productions should filming be halted due to Covid-19 (read our news), this isn’t the case in Germany or in Ireland where the film has had to take out some pretty costly additional insurance (payable by the production in the former case, but covered by Screen Ireland in the latter).

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Dazzling at the head of the cast is Isabelle Huppert (currently touring cinemas in Mama Weed [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), flanked by German actor Lars Eidinger (recently seen in Personal Shopper [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Artemio Benki
interview: Olivier Assayas
film profile], My Little Sister [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stéphanie Chuat and Véroniq…
film profile], Persian Lessons [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Leonie Benesch
film profile]), Swann Arlaud (2018’s Best Actor César for Bloody Milk [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hubert Charuel
film profile] and this year’s Best Supporting Role trophy for By the Grace of God [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: François Ozon
film profile], and whom we’ll see as of 16 December in How I Became a Super Hero), British actress Freya Mavor (The Keeper [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marcus H Rosenmüller
film profile], The Emperor of Paris [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), Florence Loiret-Caille (well-received in The Together Project [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and in the series The Bureau, among other works) and Dimitri Doré (whom we’ll discover next year in Bruno Reidal).

Written by Laurent Larivière and François Decodts (who already teamed up with the director on I Am A Solider), the story revolves around a woman overwhelmed by the return of somebody she loved in her younger years, so much so that she hastily leaves Paris and heads to the countryside. She needs to revisit the past 40 years of her existence. She pieces together a fragmented and romantic portrait of her life, and her son Nathan, who has suddenly returned home from Montreal, accompanies her on this inner journey – an odyssey which is liberating but from which there’s no return. We all tell ourselves stories…

Produced by Marc-Antoine Robert and Xavier Rigault for Parisian firm 2.4.7. Films, About Joan is co-produced by Germany’s Gifted Films West and Irish group Blinder Films Limited. Pre-purchased by OCS, the feature film enjoys the support of Eurimages, the French-German co-production mini-treaty, Screen Ireland, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma, NRW, and the SOFICA companies La Banque Postale Image, Cinémage and Palatine. Cinematography is in the hands of Céline Bozon (nominated for a 2017 Lumières award in her field for Félicité [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alain Gomis
film profile]), distribution in France will be steered by Haut et Court while international sales are entrusted to Playtime.

For the record, 2.4.7. Films are currently overseeing post-production on Arnaud Malherbe’s Ogre [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

(Translated from French)