PARIS - The upcoming film VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS (2017) has a bang up cast (Cara Delevingne, Dane DeHaan and Clive Owen), will employ a twelve-hundred-person crew, take six months to shoot (with principal photography starting in January) and has been in the preparatory phases for two years. From a Frenchman's viewpoint, at least, it's a big deal. And yet, instead of being able to shoot

French cinema's B.O. returns in 2012 have set a record with over $1BN in ticket sales, an increase of 88% compared to the previous year, according to a statement released Friday by Unifrance, the Paris-based lobby and trade representation group. This new record beats the previous one established in 2008, by a lot. According to Unifrance, which is also responsible for the promotion of French cinema abroad, record performance in 2012

[correction: I mistakenly mentioned on the show that “Destinée” is […]

Liam Neeson provides for one of the few real gruff […]

Europe may now just be on equal footing with Hollywood in terms of sound-stage real estate thanks to Luc Besson (“Taken,” “Nikita”). The French filmmaker’s twelve-year-in-the-making dream of a movie studio has materialized with the official inauguration last night of the Cité du Cinéma (City of Cinema) in the northern Paris suburb of Saint Denis. Visibly moved, the director drove home the point during his remarks to the 300 or

Leave it to the people who invented cinema to make film education free. Following in the ideological footsteps of Richard Descoings, Europacorp’s chairman Luc Besson has thrown open the doors of a new film school which he inaugurated this week. As reported by A.F.P. (Agence France Presse) Besson announced the start of registration at the School for the City, which is located in a working-class suburb of Paris called Saint-Denis

First I shall say, Viva La Mag! I’ve seen several […]