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Six features in, French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé hasn’t had a long history with the Cannes Film Festival. In fact, the one time Camera d’Or juror saw his debut 1999 film, Le bleu des villes land in the Directors’ Fortnight and after gigs such as Not Here to Be Loved (2005), Entre adultes (2006), César Award winning Mademoiselle Chambon (2009) and A Few Hours of Spring (2011), Murphy’s Law certainly did not have its place with a film on market laws. Nabbing his first Main Comp slot presence with Le Loi du marche (known to international auds as The Measure of a Man) this is the filmmakers third straight collaboration with actor Vincent Lindon. With Variety calling this “a companion piece to the Dardenne brothers’ “Two Days, One Night,” early press screenings that took place this morning pleased the small number of critics from our panel who did shore up to this tough...

A Simple Man

Director: Stephane Brize // Writer: Stephane Brize

This will be the sixth film from director Stephane Brize, perhaps best known for his Cesar award winning 2009 film, Mademoiselle Chambon. Known for working class character studies, though his last feature, 2012’s Locarno premiered A Few Hours of Spring (see pic above) never received Us distribution. His latest, which will reunite Brize for the third time with Vincent Lindon, looks to be in a similar vein. While Brize’s profile has been slow to rise in the Us, he should be a name of note, recalling early works of Laurent Cantet or the Dardenne Bros. In A Simple Man, Lindon (pic above) plays Laurent, a man who starts a new job as a security guard and is asked to spy on his colleagues.

Cast: Vincent Lindon

Producers: Nord-Ouest Productions’ Christophe Rossugnon and Philip Boeffard (Les combattants)

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available.

The annual New Directors / New Films showcase organized by the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center has selected as one of this year’s films Amer, the feature film debut by Montreal transgressive filmmaking duo Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani. The film will screen twice during the program:

April 2

9:15 p.m.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

April 3

2:00 p.m.

Museum of Modern Art

So far, 2010 is looking to be a huge year for Cattet and Forzani. Prior to Nd/Nf in April, Amer will screen in March at both the Boston Underground Film Festival and at SXSW. This is already after having a very successful 2009, where the film played at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival and has won awards at the Lund Fantastisk Film Festival, Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival, Festival Nouveau Cinema de Montreal and more.

Amer is a tribute to the...