Fatima will have a nationwide release later this year, with a VOD release planned by the end of 2016. Here’s the full release:
New York, NY – February 19, 2016 – Kino Lorber is proud to announce the acquisition of all U.S. rights to Philippe Faucon’s Fatima, the critically acclaimed drama based on the experiences of North African writer Fatima Elayoubi in France.
After a world premiere at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (Directors’ Fortnight), this “warm and insightful study of a Moroccan immigrant mother” (Variety) will have its US premiere at the upcoming Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, organized by Unifrance and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The following month, Fatima will have its west coast premiere at COLCOA, the Los Angeles-based French film festival.
Fatima won France’s prestigious Prix Louis-Delluc award (Best Film), given by film critics and renowned national figures, and was nominated in all major categories (best film, best director, etc.) for the upcoming Cesar Awards, France’s “Oscars.”
Kino Lorber is planning a national theatrical release for the film, after the upcoming Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series premiere, and will make the film available on VOD and home media by the end of the year. The deal was negotiated between Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber and Pyramide Films’ Head of Sales Agathe Valentin.
“Middle-aged single mother Fatima (Soria Zeroual) lives with her two teenage daughters and works cleaning jobs to pay their way through school. Inspired by a true story and the poetry of the North African writer Fatima Elayoubi, who immigrated knowing very little French and slowly taught herself the language, Faucon’s eighth feature is a patient, reflective study of a woman pressured by her children and her neighbors alike to assimilate into a culture of which she’s wary. Despite the display of everyday racism, both veiled and overt; internal domestic disputes; and external gestures of inhospitality, Fatima offers an uplifting experience and one of recent French cinema’s most trenchant and moving portraits of immigrant experience.” (Rendez-Vous with French Cinema)
Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber says: “It is truly a pleasure to bring this rare treasure to American audiences. Without exploitively treating the worldwide immigration crisis, Phillippe Faucon intimately reveals Fatima’s personal world of care and hope, deepening our empathy for a true “mother courage” as we watch her play out a quietly heroic role.”
