iW NEWS | IFC Adds Honore Film to Growing Fest Direct Slate

Louis Garrel and Lea Seydoux in a scene from Christophe Honore's "La Belle Personne."

Christophe Honore's "La Belle Personne," the final film in the French director's Parisian youth trilogy, has been acquired for U.S. distribution by IFC Films. The acquisition marks the latest in a string of deals for the company's Festival Direct VOD label and the third time that IFC will distribute an Honore film (following "Love Songs" and "Dans Paris"). The news at the of the deal came on Saturday night at the American Film Market, one day after IFC announced a ten film Festival Direct pact with sales company Celluloid Dreams.

Starring frequent Honore collaborator Louis Garrel, "La Belle Personne" is described as, "an elegant, loving and romantic portrait of tangled teen relationships in a Parisian lycee." The film, punctuated by musical numbers and the songs of Nick Drake, is a take on Madame de Lafayette's novel "La Princess de Cleves." Recently released in France, the film played at the recent London and San Sebastian film festivals. IFC's Lizzie Nastro negotiated the deal with Le Pacte's Elisabeth Perlie.

The French trailer for Christophe Honore's "La Belle Personne" (via YouTube).

"Christopher Honore and Louis Garrel are the modern day equivalent of Francois Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Leaud," praised IFC Films president Jonathan Sehring, in a statement. "They are a part of the IFC family and we are so excited to be working with this dynamic pair again." In a statement, Elisabeth Perlie saluted IFC saying, "They have developed [Honore's] reputation in [the] U.S. and worked to build a faithful audience for him."

On Friday, IFC announced deals for Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Still Walking," Thomas Vinterberg's "When A Man Comes Home," Baltasar Kormakur's "White Night Wedding," and Caroline Link's "A Year Ago in Winter," among others. The acquisitions, part of a ten-film deal with Celluloid Dreams, were negotiated by IFC's Arianna Bocco and Celluloid's Hengameh Panahi. The titles will be released via Festival Direct next year, with some of the films receiving limited theatrical distribution. Other films in the Celluloid deal include Ryosuke Hashiguchi's "All Around Us," Duane Hopkins' "Better Things," Marco Bechis' "Birdwatchers," Safy Nebbou's "Mark of An Angel," Yu Lik-wai's "Plastic City," and Dennis Gansel's "The Wave."

"The exceptional national reach of Festival Direct means that new foreign films now have the chance to be seen by millions of people at the touch of a remote control button," Sehring said in a statement, with Celluloid's Panahi adding, "We hope this is just the start of a beautiful partnership with IFC to increase the visibility and accessibility of foreign films throughout the United States."