luc jacquet Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Picturehouse has acquired the U.S. rights to The Fox & the Child, the first narrative film from the team that created The March of the Penguins. If you're one of two people not familiar with that movie, it was last year's surprise smash, winner of the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award, and even spawned a full-length spoof. Since The Fox is also being listed on imdb as Le Renard et l'enfant, I'm betting this will be a French film (I'm excellent with languages). The Fox and the Child is currently in production, with Penguins director Luc Jacquet both writing and directing.

Variety reports that the film is based on Jacquet's own childhood experiences. Seeing that the film tells the story of a little girl who goes into the woods and winds up entering a different dimension by following in a fox's footsteps, I'd say Jacquet had a much more exciting childhood than I did! The story sounds very Chronic - what?- cles of Narnia to me, hopefully these guys will put a new spin on things. Jacquet has his work cut out for him -- the switch from documentary to narrative filmmaking is one that several doc makers haven't made that smoothly. See Michael Moore's Canadian Bacon. Actually...don't. No word on casting for The Fox, but let me just suggest either Jamie, Matthew, or Michael J.

So in honor of the season of goodwill towards men, yet another lawsuit is on the way. First up was Jon Peters and a sexual harassment suit, and now Laurent Chalet, who was the Director of Photography for the award-winning documentary March of the Penguins is suing for directorial credit alongside Luc Jacquet.

Variety confirmed that Chalet has filed a lawsuit against the producers of the film. Chalet states that he shot most of the film with the second director of photography Jerome Maison during a 13-month production in Antarctica. Already talk of an out-of-court settlement have begun between the lawyers, but the producers are unwilling to budge on giving Chalet the credit. Producer Yves Darondeau stated "As director of photography, Laurent Chalet did a very good job in difficult conditions, but that doesn't qualify him for a director's credit -- The director has the idea, the point of view, tells a story and has the final cut. It is a very different job." Maison, who is currently working with Jaquet on his follow up The Fox & the Child, about a little girl who tames a fox, is standing behind the producers, and makes no such claims about directing Penguins. Darondeau isn't worried, stating "Unfortunately, when a French film does well, there are practically always lawsuits like this; It's become a fashion." The case is set to come before the court this February.

French director Luc Jacquet, who exploded into the world's consciousness at the helm of a little picture called March of the Penguins, has revealed that his follow up will again focus on nature, albeit with a fiction story mixed in. The film, which will be called The Fox & the Child, tells the story of a young girl and her relationship with, erm, a fox. (Apparently Jacquet met a fox when he was 10, and that experience is at the root of this project. No lie.) The film will combine footage of animals in the wild with dramatic, fictional sequences, and will be driven by a voice-over by the young girl as an adult.

The Fox & the Child will start shooting in March, but isn't expected to be ready for released until late 2007. As vaguely silly as the movie sounds, it actually reminds me a bit of 1988's wonderful The Bear (also directed by a Frenchman), which used footage of (trained) animals sort of in the wild to tell a fictional story  - if his film can be done with similar lightness and charm, Jacquet could have another quiet little success on his hands.