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Christoph Hochhäusler’s Death Will Come pulls us deep into the murky underworld of Brussels. A cash courier’s arrest kicks off a twisting tale as gangster boss Charles Mahr hires mysterious assassin Tez to locate the killer. Played compellingly by Sophie Verbeeck, Tez is tough yet keeps her motives hidden. She navigates a web of intrigue involving Mahr, sleazy rival Patric, and the enigmatic madame Mela.

This neo-noir sinks its claws into the architecture and atmosphere of its setting. Gritty streets and rundown spaces become characters in their own right. We feel the oppression of shadowy figures pulling strings from darkened corners. Hochhäusler paints his city in shades of danger and deception, leaving us to untangle the threats lurking around every turn.

Under the genre pacing lie deeper mysteries. What drives these figures to walk the lines between power, corruption, and mortal peril?

As Tez delves for answers, her...

German writer and director Christoph Hochhäusler (Milchwald, Till the End of the Night) enjoys diving into the female psyche, even if it is that of as hitwoman. His new film Le Mort Viendra (Death Will Come) had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival’s 77th edition on Thursday, the first full day of Locarno77 after its Wednesday opening night.

Belgian actress Sophie Verbeeck (All About Them) stars as Tez, a contract killer. “Charles Mahr, a legendary gangster, hires her to avenge the murder of one of his couriers,” reads a plot summary. “Once in Brussels, she gets caught up in the thicket of intrigue in which she herself becomes the prey. Tez has to decide whose instrument she wants to be.”

Produced by Heimatfilm, in collaboration with Amour Fou Luxembourg and Tarantula, the French-language film, part of Locarno’s international competition lineup whose jury is led by Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner,...

Germany’s Christoph Hochhäusler, the acclaimed director of “Till The End of The Night” which premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival, returns with his latest film, “Death Will Come.” The crime piece is set to debut at the Locarno Film Festival, produced by Heimatfilm in collaboration with Amour Fou Luxembourg and Tarantula.

Sold by Italy’s True Colors, the film sees Tez, a hitwoman played by Sophie Verbeeck, tasked to avenge the death of a crime boss’s courier. The boss (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) who hired her has motives more nuanced than they seem.

Tez remains an enigma, with the story only scratching the surface of what makes her tick as she goes about her work. For Hochhäusler, the mystery is intentional. “I believe spectator and character must meet. As a spectator, I am usually willing to go to greater lengths, investing in the fiction so to speak, if the...

Italy’s True Colours has taken on international sales for German director Christoph Hochhäusler’s upcoming noir thriller Death Will Come (La Mort Viendra).

Currently in post-production, Death Will Come centres on a female assassin who is hired by a leading gangster to avenge the murder of one of his couriers – but soon finds herself the prey. The French-language film stars Franco-Belgian actress Sophie Verbeeck and veteran French actor Louis-Do de Lencquesaing.

Hochhausler’s previous film Till The End Of The Night premiered in competition at Berlin in 2023.

Death Will Come is a German-Luxembourg-Belgium co-production. The co-producers are leading German...

Hochhäusler’s latest feature Till The End Of The Night is screening in Competition at the Berlinale.

German director Christoph Hochhäusler, whose latest feature Till The End Of The Night is screening in Competition at the Berlinale, is to make his first foray into French-language filmmaking with Death Will Come, a thriller starring Franco-Belgian actress Sophie Verbeeck and veteran French actor Louis-Do de Lencquesaing.

Principal photography on the thriller will begin in Brussels on March 1 before moving to Luxembourg and Cologne. It is being produced by Cologne-based Heimatfilm with Amour Fou Luxembourg and Tarantula Belgique.

Death Will Come centres on female contract killer Tez,...

Most film imports from France are fresh from festivals and festooned with critical hosannas, which means American moviegoers don’t often get to see more populist French fare.

For example, actress-writer-director Lisa Azuelos had directed seven movies solo in France before she sold to Amazon her eighth feature, “I Love America” starring Sophie Marceau. This romantic autofiction is part memoir, part culture comedy, as Marceau plays a 50-year-old filmmaker based on Azuelos who takes off for Los Angeles just as her mother is dying.

The movie mixes time frames, from Azuelos’ foray into Hollywood, including Tinder dating, to a look back at her fraught relationship with her mother, pop singer Marie Laforêt (Sophie Verbeeck). Azuelos only saw her estranged parents several times a year; her mother was always on tour. “I would see them maybe for vacation one month, but that’s it,” said Azuelos in our Zoom interview. “She wasn’t a mother,...

It’s hard to imagine that the ideal audience for the cringe-inducing French romantic comedy “I Love America” will reject its pat life lessons and hacky jokes, partly because Sophie Marceau, playing a single Frenchwoman living and looking for love in Los Angeles, tends to be a more compelling performer than anything that her character does or says on-screen.

“I Love America” also bats at the sort of low-hanging fruit that, given the right mood, could be of interest to anyone who enjoys watching cornball romantic comedies or even the embarrassing but compulsively watchable “And Just Like That…” revival.

Director Lisa Azuelos (the French comedy “Lol”) and her co-writer Gaël Fierro didn’t overexert themselves as far as their tired jokes about underwhelming dating-app encounters and L.A. pretensions. But Marceau and her co-stars are all front-lit to the point where they look immaculately airbrushed, and the formulaic plot and...

Jean Paul Civeyrac’s black-and-white film will open theatrically in late summer.

Kino Lorber closed a deal for North American rights yesterday (May 8) to Jean Paul Civeyrac’s A Paris Education following its world premiere in Berlin’s Panorama sidebar.

The black-and-white film will open theatrically in late summer, followed by VOD and home entertainment in autumn.

A Paris Education (formerly Mes Provinciales) centres on a filmmaking student in Paris who spends a year navigating the challenges of love and friendship. Andranic Manet, Corentin Fila, Gonzague Van Bervesselès, Diane Rouxel, Jenna Thiam, Sophie Verbeeck, and Charlotte Van Bervesselès star in the Moby Dick Films production.

A Paris Education (Mes Provinciales)‬ director Jean-Paul Civeyrac: "I had the idea for the film after seeing the Marlen Khutsiev film of which we see an excerpt in the film. It's called La Porte D'Ilitch [I Am Twenty]." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

When was the last time Novalis (writer of the early Romantic movement and champion of the blue flower) was quoted in a film? Jean-Paul Civeyrac's A Paris Education (shot by Pierre-Hubert Martin, edited by Louise Narboni), starring Andranic Manet (Katell Quillévéré's Heal The Living) with Sophie Verbeeck (Jérôme Bonnell's All About Them), Diane Rouxel (Frédéric Mermoud's Moka), Jenna Thiam (Cédric Kahn's Wild Life), Gonzague Van Bervesseles, and Corentin Fila, illuminates the sundry elements of what actually constitutes education.

Jean-Paul Civeyrac: "I think there's a parallel there with the end of Flaubert's Sentimental Education where the characters say, what we lived that was most powerful, is something that happened before.

Anaïs Demoustier brings unaffected charm to this Lille-based love-triangle farce

From Truffaut’s Jules et Jim to Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, Bertrand Blier’s Ménage to Rohmer’s The Collector, French cinema has a seemingly inexhaustible appetite for love triangles, preferably luxuriantly doomed and tragic ones. By contrast, the sexual dynamic in this Lille-based bedroom farce is decidedly frothy. Anaïs Demoustier plays Mélodie, a lawyer who is in a tortured gay relationship with wannabe singer Charlotte (Sophie Verbeeck). Mélodie knows that Charlotte will never leave her boyfriend Micha (Félix Moati); it’s a constant source of anguish. However, Mélodie hadn’t reckoned on the smouldering attraction between her and Micha igniting into a fully fledged affair. She finds herself cheating on both sides of the couple, with the other. The skittish comic approach is tempered by the fact that all three actors – and Demoustier in particular – bring an unaffected charm...

Exclusive: Independent film distributor to offer a real diamond to UK cinemagoers as part of marketing campaign.

Swipe Films has acquired the UK and Irish rights to The Last Diamond (Le Dernier Diamant) from Other Angle Pictures and All About Them (A Trois on Y Va) from Versatile Films .

Eric Barbier’s The Last Diamond stars Berenice Bejo (The Artist) as a gem expert in charge of auctioning a 137-carat diamond while Yvan Attal plays a con-man.

Swipe is offering a real diamond that has been specially designed for the UK campaign and every cinemagoer who goes to see the film on its opening weekend has a chance to win it.

The acquisition was negotiated by Swipe Films’ Frank Mannion and Other Angle Pictures’ Olivier Albou.

Speaking about the unique marketing campaign, Mannion said: “The Last Diamond is an original thriller about a spectacular diamond heist, so we felt that we had to come up with something...

Rod Paradot photographed by Roy McKeag when he presented Standing Tall at Glasgow Film Theatre

Several young actors seen on screen or in person at this year’s 23rd edition of French Film Festival UK are in contention for nominations as best newcomer in the French Oscars, the Césars it was announced today (17 Nov).

Freya Mavor who presented The Lady In The Car with Glasses and a Gun at Edinburgh Filmhouse Photo: Mhairi Bell-Moodie

Among them are: Scots-born Freya Mavor for The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun by Joann Sfar, Rod Paradot for Standing Tall and Félix Moati for All About Them, all of whom attended the Festival to present their films.

Others in the line-up of 32 new talents are: Sara Giraudeau (Les Bêtises), Mathilde Bisson (Au plus près du soleil), Zita Hanrot (Fatima), Baya Medhaffar (A peine j'ouvre les yeux), Georgia Scalliet (L'Odeur de la...

Exclusive: Other new additions include Jerome Bonnell’s A Trois, On Y Va.

Paris-based sales agent Versatile has picked up Argentine Santiago Mitre’s social thriller La Patota about an idealistic lawyer who is attacked by a gang while doing charity work in an impoverished border-town.

Other additions to Versatile’s Tiff slate include France’s Jérôme Bonnell’s upcoming A Trois, On Y Va, a love triangle comedy starring Anais Demoustier, Sophie Verbeeck and Félix Moati.

Mitre’s second film after The Student, which won the Locarno’s special jury prize in 2011, La Patota has just started shooting in Misiones in north-east Argentina, with Argentine actress Dolorès Fonzi in the lead role.

Inspired by late compatriot filmmaker Daniel Tinayre’s 1960 classic, it revolves around lawyer Pauline who ditches a glittering career in Buenos Aires to help the inhabitants of her impoverished hometown on the Argentine border with Paraguay and Brazil.

Within days of...