European Films

Hungarian director Szabolcs Hajdu, whose gymnast drama Fehér tenyér (White Palms) premiered in the US on Friday, has finished shooting on his drama Adel versus Friday,  which was originally conceived as a TV film on a €270,000 budget and was shot on 16mm. It will premiere in Hungarian cinemas in autumn. With that film in postproduction, Hajdu is gearing up for the shoot of Gyöngéd kezelés (Smooth Operator, also known as Pascal's Library / Bibliothèque Pascal), which is eyeing an August start. The €3 million film follows the travels of a Hungarian girl from Transylvania and is a co-production involving Hungary, Germany and UK. Read last year's interview with the director  for more on both Fehér tenyér and Gyöngéd kezelés. (source: hungarianfilm.com)

Italian actor Stefano Accorsi (Romanzo criminale, Saturno contro) has just wrapped the French romantic comedy Un baiser s'il vous plaît (lit. A Kiss, Please) from Changement d'adresse director Emmanuel Mouret, in which he co-stars with Virginie Ledoyen (La doublure/The Valet) and the director. The film, which was also written by Mouret and boasts a €2.8 million budget, is about "kisses that were exchanged thinking they would not have any consequences".

Accorsi is currently preparing to star in another French production: Baby Blues, a sentimental comedy from Diane Bertrand (L'annulaire/The Ring Finger) in which he will play the Italian partner of a successful French careerwoman played by Karin Viard (Le couperet). When she is offered a transfer to New York, she starts worrying about the likelihood of ever having children, forcing her man to see a psychologist who turns out to be same as her own. The €5 million film will start shooting in October and should be ready for a release in June 2008. (source: cineuropa.org) 

In Spain, Gorka Merchán has started filming on his directorial debut La casa de mi padre (lit. My Father's House) in the Basque region of Guipuscoa. The film tells the story of a Basque industrialist who returns to his village of birth after ten years in Argentina. He is there to visit his wife and only daughter, but especially to see his brother with whom he has not spoken in years and who is dying. His brother asks him to take care of his teenage son,  which makes him take up Basque pelota again, the handball sport that both  uncle and nephew play and which could unite them. The film stars Carmelo Gómez (La noche de los girasoles/Night of the Sunflowers), Juan José Ballesta (Planta 4ª/The 4th Floor), Emma Suárez, Verónica Echegui and Alex Angulo. The film will be partly in Spanish and partly in Basque. (source: cineytele)

After having completed Juraj Jakubisko's bloody period piece Bathory in Czech Republic, Italian actor Franco Nero is currently in Hungaria shooting Tamás Almási's  Mario, a varázsló (Mario, the Magician). In what is only the director's second fiction feature after many acclaimed documentaries, Nero will play the title character: an Italian businessman who changes the lives of all around him in a Hungarian village. The film is based on a short story by Margit Halász, while the title is play on a Thomas Mann work with a similar title. Two other Italians are also part of the cast: Vittorio Marsiglia and Antonio Grosso. (source: cinecittà news)

French actress Sandrine Bonnaire (Confidences trop intimes/Intimate Strangers) will star in Joueuse (lit. The Player) the directorial debut of screenwriter Caroline Bottaro, who wrote C'est la vie which also starred Bonnaire. In the film, Bonnaire will play a cleaning lady in a hotel who happens upon two guests playing chess, which she discovers to find absolutely fascinating.  The  drama also stars Swiss actor Bruno Ganz (Hitler in Der Untergang) and will start shooting in winter. (source: allocine)