Set in Australia and starring Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, James Frecheville and Xavier Samuel, Adorewas scripted by Christopher Hampton, winner of the best screenplay Oscar in 1988 for Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons. Remstar Films is releasing the film in Canada.
Roz and Lil are the best of friends, and have been since childhood, growing up as neighbours in an idyllic beach town. As adults, their teenaged sons have developed a friendship as strong as that which binds their mothers. One perfect summer the boys, along with their mothers, are confronted by the simmering emotions that have been mounting between them... Afraid of facing the ire and judgment of their insular seaside community, they continue the relationships in secret over the years. Once the affairs are discovered, the revelation threatens to tear apart their lives and those of the young men, who must eventually choose between following a well-worn path or their true desires.
“The short novel (The Grandmothers) by Doris Lessing from which my film was adapted,” explained Ms. Fontaine, “contains everything I like to develop: an ambiguous and strange love story, a contained universe that is yet open to the world, and the opportunity to push exceptional actors to plumb their deepest personal truths... I hope Canadian audiences, who I know to be open minded, will be sensitive to this portrait of particular passions.”
Born in Luxembourg in 1959, Anne Fontaine began her professional career as a dancer and actress, in productions by, among others, Joseph Russillo and Robert Hossein. She made her auspicious directorial debut in 1993 with Les Histoires d'amour finissent mal... en général, which showed at Cannes and went on the win the prestigious Prix Jean-Vigo. In 1995, she worked with her brother on the comedy, Augustin (shown at the MWFF). Two years later, she wrote and directed Dry Cleaning, which won Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival In 1999 the Augustin character re-appearedAugustin, King of Kung-Fu, and Fontaine followed that with How I Killed My Father (2001), which earned Michel Bouquet the best actor César and was also shown at the MWFF, and Nathalie... in 2003. She switched gears for the “intimate thriller” (in her words), In His Hands(2005), and followed that with a third Augustin film, Nouvelle chance (2006), The Girl From Monaco in 2008, Coco Before Chanel, her biopic of Coco Chanel, in 2009, and My Worst Nightmare in 2011.
The Montreal World Film Festival will run from August 22 to September 2. It is the only competitive festival in North America recognized by FIAPF (the International Federation of Film Producers’ Associations).