FRENCH SCREENPLAY READINGS

Feature film scripts

3 scripts of first feature films will be read in public by professional actors. The actors will be announced in January.
In partnership with SACD, the VISIO Foundation, Combier and Mauboussin

In Sokcho, a small seaside town in South Korea, Soo-Ha leads a routine life. The arrival of a Frenchman, Kerrand, in the boarding house where she works, awakens questions about her own identity. As winter numbs the town, they observe each other, gauge each other and form a fragile bond.

Koya Kamura joined the VIACOM group (MTV, GameOne) in 2007 and trained on the job in journalistic writing, framing and editing. He then joined the Walt Disney Company, first in the creative department, before participating in the development of the Disney+ platform. With his first short film Homesick, in 2019 (Official Selection César 2021, Unifrance Prize at Aix en 2020, Best Director at Hollyshort, Audience Prize at Côté Court, Pantin and Off-Court, Trouville), he takes the turn to fiction. He developed two feature films, Hiver à Sokcho, an adaptation of Elisa Shua Dusapin's novel, and Evaporated, a dark thriller set in the heart of Fukushima and its no-go zone.

Stéphane Ly-Cuong is a screenwriter, director and actor. He has directed several short films including Paradisco, Feuilles de printemps and Allée des Jasmins. He is currently working on his first feature film, Dans la cuisine des Nguyen, produced by Respiro Productions.

Julie Gayet has acted for many filmmakers such as Antoine Desrosières (À la belle étoile), Agnès Varda (Les Cents et Une Nuits), Dominique Farrugia (Delphine 1, Yvan 0), Laurent Bouhnik (Select Hôtel), Christophe Loizillon (Ma caméra et moi), Jean-Charles Tachella (Les Gens qui s'aiment), Michel Deville (Un monde presque paisible), Patrice Leconte (Mon meilleur ami), Emmanuel Mouret (Un baiser, s'il vous plaît !), Guy Mazarguil (L'Art de séduire), Xabi Molia (Huit fois debout), Bertrand Tavernier (Quay d'Orsay), Pascal Elbé (Je compte sur vous) and Nicolas Vanier (Poly). With Rouge International, she has produced several feature films over the past ten years, including Julia Ducournau's Grave, selected at Premiers Plans in 2017. In 2021, she is a founding member of the Sœurs Jumelles festival, dedicated to the meeting of Music and Image.

Les Fantômes
Direction Jonathan Millet
Sript Jonathan Millet and Florence Rochat
Production Films Grand Huit

After studying philosophy, Jonathan Millet spent several years filming alone in remote regions of the world for image databases. He directed six short fiction films (including Et toujours nous marcherons, selected for the 2018 César Awards, and La Veillée, released in theatres in 2018). At the same time, he works on documentaries about territory and solitude (Ceuta, douce prison, released in 2014, Dernières nouvelles des étoiles, filmed in Antarctica, 2017, and La Disparition, filmed in the Amazon, 2021). He is preparing his first feature film, Les Fantômes, Grand Prix du scénario 2022 (ex-Sopadin) and selected for the Ateliers d'Angers 2022.

After a master's degree in film research and a degree in modern literature from the Sorbonne-Nouvelle, Florence Rochat devoted herself to writing and directing. She developed several projects including the short film Poupées de chair which she co-directed with Séréna Robin in 2022. The film was selected in several festivals in France and abroad, including the FiFF Namur, the Festival Européen du film court de Brest, the Festival international du film d'Amiens, the Festival du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand (carte blanche Canal +). She has also been a lecturer at the Cinémathèque française for the past ten years, a speaker for the Forum des images and the ADRC and will soon publish a book of dialogues on cinema with Alain Bergala. Les Fantômes is her first experience of co-writing a feature film.

Emmanuel Salinger attended Tania Balachova's drama school and the IDHEC, editing and directing section. In 1990, Noémie Lvovsky hired him as interpreter and editor for her short film Dis-moi oui, dis-moi non. He was then discovered in the film La Vie des morts and then La Sentinelle by Arnaud Desplechin, for which he won the Michel Simon prize and the César for best male hope. He then went on to work with Xavier Beauvois, Patrice Chéreau, Noémie Lvovsky, Sophie Fillières, Agnès Varda, Maria de Medeiros, Guillaume Nicloux, Valérie Donzelli, Eric Rohmer, Rebecca Zlotowski, Laëtitia Masson and Tran Anh Hung. At the same time, he has acted in plays by great authors such as Shakespeare, Duras, Chekhov, Pinter, etc. Emmanuel Salinger has directed several short films and a feature film, La Grande Vie, released in 2009.

Alice de Lencquesaing made her debut in Naissance des pieuvres by Céline Sciamma and in L'Heure d'été by Olivier Assayas. In 2009 she played in Le Père de mes enfants by Mia Hansen-Løve and then in 2012 in Louis-Do de Lencquesaing's first feature film, Au galop, for which she was nominated for the César for Best Female Hope. She then went on to work with directors such as Roschdy Zem, Guillaume Nicloux, Cédric Anger, Anne Giafferi, Valérie Donzelli, François Ozon, Katell Quillévéré, Carine Tardieu, Alexis Michalik, Audrey Diwan, Michèle Laroque. She wrote and directed her first short film in 2016, Tous les garçons, then a second in 2020, En Maria, and is developing other writing and directing projects.

After training at the Cours Florent, Makita Samba joined the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique. He divides his time between theatre, film and television. On the stage, he has performed in numerous shows, including Harlem Quartet, based on James Baldwin's Just Above My Head, and has collaborated on three occasions with the author and director Guillaume Vincent. For the cinema, he made several short films, including La Diagonale du vide by Hubert Charuel, then in the feature films Mon amie Victoria by Jean-Paul Civeyrac, Happy End by Michael Haneke, Nos années folles by André Téchiné, L'Amant d'un jour by Philippe Garrel and Angelo by Markus Schleinzer. Makita Samba is the main male actor in Jacques Audiard's Les Olympiades, in official competition at Cannes 2021, for which he was nominated for a César for Best New Male Talent.

Vincent works in a night shift on the gigantic construction site of Grand Ciel, a futuristic eco-district. The pace is hellish but he hangs in there. When a worker disappears, his colleagues suspect the team leader of having covered up his accident. But soon Vincent witnesses strange occurrences on the site and, in turn, another worker disappears.

Born in Japan, Akihiro Hata arrived in France in 2003. After a degree in cinema at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, he joined the directing department of La Fémis from which he graduated in 2010. He has since directed two medium-length films: Les Invisibles (2015) and À la chasse (2016), both presented at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, and the documentary Corps solitaire (2018). He is currently developing his first feature film Grand Ciel, co-written with Jérémie Dubois and produced by Good Fortune Films. The project was selected at the Ateliers d'Angers in 2020.

Jérémie Dubois studied political science before training at the NFTS in London and La Fémis in Paris and becoming a screenwriter. He has written a dozen short films, two of which were selected at Cannes, and several feature films, notably with Carlo Francisco Manatad (Philippines, Locarno and Toronto festivals in 2021), Zhang Tao (China, filming planned for March 2023) and Akihiro Hata (filming planned for summer 2023). He is currently writing with Ahmed Fawzi (Egypt), Urska Djukic (Slovenia) or Yi-Tzu Lan (Taiwan). He has also directed a short film, selected in Clermont-Ferrand in 2022.

Alexis Manenti began his career in the Kourtrajmé collective by shooting in the first short films of Kim Chapiron and Romain Gavras. In 2017, he co-wrote with Ladj Ly the short film Les Misérables in which he plays. This short film became a feature film and won the Special Jury Prize in Cannes. For this film he won the César for Best New Male Artist in 2020. He has also acted for Fred Cavayé (Mea culpa), Arnaud des Pallières (Orpheline), Fanny Ardant (Le Divan de Staline), Romain Gavras (Le Monde est à toi), Olivier Babinet (Poissonsexe), Thierry de Peretti (Enquête sur un scandale d'état). This year he will be seen in Dalva by Emmanuelle Nicot.

Samir Guesmi was noticed for his performance in Malik le maudit by Youcef Hamidi, which earned him the Michel Simon prize and the interpretation prize at the Amiens Festival in 1994. Alain Gomis gave him his first major role in Andalucia in 2007. Nominated for the César for Best Supporting Actor in 2013 with Camille redouble by Noémie Lvovsky, he continues to work with great authors such as Sólveig Anspach, Bruno Podalydès, Valérie Donzelli, Arnaud Desplechin and Claire Simon. In 2007, Samir Guesmi directed his first short film C'est dimanche ! which won the Audience Award at the Clermont-Ferrand Festival. In 2021, his first feature film, Ibrahim, was released and won the Grand Jury Prize at Premiers Plans. Last December he starred in Rachid Bouchareb's Nos frangins, and this year he will be seen in Rachid Hami's Pour la France.

After three years at the conservatory in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, Nailia Harzoune acted in Geronimo for Tony Gatlif in 2014, then in Made in France by Nicolas Boukhrief, La Taularde by Audrey Estrougo and Chouf by Karim Dridi. In 2017, she starred in the film Patients by Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir, which was a great public success. She regularly performs in theatre and television, notably in Le Grand Bazar by Baya Kasmi. In 2020, she will appear in Audrey Diwan's first film, Mais vous êtes fous, and in 2022 in Placés by Nessim Chikhaoui.