Producing "Cessez-le-feu"

 

When in 2005 I founded Polaris Film, I just returned from 10 years of production in Berlin. As a former Studio Babelsberg executive, I was a convinced follower of European co-productions. To start with, at that time I shared my company with a Belgium partner (Saga Film) and a German one (Dalka).

 

As a natural result, almost all my productions have been structured as European Productions. « 2 Days in Paris » was a French-German co-production, « Das Vaterspiel » a German/Austrian/French coproduction, « Rondo » a Belgium/French co-production, «Hitler à Hollywood» a Belgium/French co-production and « 2 Days in New York » a French/German/Belgium co-production.

 

For « Cessez-le-feu », the most ambitious of all our projects, it was obvious to team up with Belgium again. First because Belgium helped us produce the first film by Emmanuel Courcol (« Geraldine je t’aime » is a French/Belgium coproduction with the support of he « Communauté Française de Belgique ») and also because the theme touched our Belgium partners from the very first draft of the script.

 

Umedia Production had been our financial partners on many of our productions («Rondo», « Hitler à Hollywood») and Jean-Jacques Neira from Fontana a former shareholder in his time with Saga Film.

 

Together we have developed a common strategy to give rise to this project, convincing the best possible partners in both countries to be onboard with us.