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Even after winning an Oscar, a Palme d’Or and six Cesar awards with Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” French producer Marie-Ange Luciani isn’t resting on her laurels. The Paris-based producer, who runs the company Les Films de Pierre, still strives to work with emerging filmmakers and newcomers, such as Laura Wandel, whose second feature, “Adam’s Sake,” opened this year’s Cannes Critics Week to warm reviews. She’s also cultivated relationships with established auteurs, such as Robin Campillo, who won Cannes’ 2017 Jury Prize with “BPM (Beats Per Minute)” and opened Directors’ Fortnight this year with “Enzo,” which he finished after his close friend Laurent Cantet, the helmer of the Palme d’Or winning “The Class,” died before he could finish the drama.
Aside from developing Triet’s follow up to “Anatomy of a Fall” – which will shoot at least in English with some major stars — Luciani is looking ahead at a busy 2026.
She’ll next work for the first time with Alain Guiraudie, the director of the Cannes prizewinning sexually daring thriller “Stranger by the Lake.” Guiraudie is adapting Robert Merle’s “L’Ile,” an adventure novel inspired by the ill-fated true story of the HMS Bounty mutineers in 1789.
“This book came out in the 1970s and was a big hit at the time. It’s a fictionalized account of the true story of the Bounty rebels in Polynesia,” Luciani said, adding that she hopes to shoot the film next year on location in Polynesia.
“It will be an adventure film and will likely be Guiraudie’s most ambitious project to date and also one of his most political, with a touch of eccentricity,” said Luciani. “It’s a story about land distribution and how can we build a democracy together, so it will have a timely resonance,” she continued.
Guiraudie’s last film, “Miséricorde,” played at Cannes Premiere in 2024 and was shortlisted by France’s Oscar committee.
Luciani is also teaming up with Canadian producer Nancy Grant to produce Monia Chokri’s next movie, which will mark the actor-turned-director’s first film set in France, with a local cast.
Chokri’s sexy romantic comedy “The Nature of Love” played at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and won the Cesar Award for best foreign film, beating Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” in 2024. Chokri is at Cannes with two films in which she stars, Alice Douard’s “Des preuves d’amour,” playing at Critics’ Week, and Anna Cazenave Cambert’s “Love Me Tender” at Un Certain Regard.
Luciani is also interested in non-fiction. She’s partnering with Envie de Tempeête Prods. on a documentary feature called “Une vie manifeste,” directed by Jean-Gabriel Periot, about the life of Michèle Firk, a trailblazing French journalist, film critic and anti-colonial activist who rose to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s.
Luciani says Firk wanted to become a filmmaker but at the time, because she was a woman “she wasn’t allowed to live her dream.” As a result, she joined the army, and then traveled to South America and “became politically involved, so much so that she committed suicide at the age of 30 because police were coming to arrest her and she didn’t want to be tortured into giving up information,” Luciani said. The documentary, which is being produced for Arte, will be based on Firk’s personal diary and will be in the same vein as Periot’s previous documentary “Fragments.” It will be narrated two well-known French actors.
Lastly, Luciani is working with Hélène Rosselet-Ruiz on her feature debut, “Le triangle d’or,” which will star Mallory Wanecque (“Beating Hearts”). Inspired by Rosselet-Ruiz’s life, the movie will revolve around the unlikely bond between a young cleaning lady and a Saudi woman she works for in the posh 16th arrondissement of Paris.
“The filmmaker, Helene, also worked as a cleaner for a Saudi woman to pay for her studies at La Fémis,” Luciani said. “It’s a beautiful story because it really reflects on the female condition, between a young cleaning lady trapped in her very precarious social condition, and this Saudi woman who is playing a game of freedom because she’s wealthy but is trapped in a cultural context in her country that prevents her from being truly free.” The project has already lured top partners, including MK2 Films and Ad Vitam for international sales and French distribution, respectively.
Luciani says she likes to keep producing feature debuts, even if financing them is “a long-distance race.” It makes me think that we don’t have an easy job, but it’s essential that I help these young directors, male or female, so that I can see things with a fresh perspective, and understand how they view the world.
Luciani says she has tried to keep her slate of projects at a manageable size after the success of “Anatomy of a Fall” because she wants to “keep a certain level of craftsmanship.”
“I want to be able to invest myself in the films. My way of producing is to stay close to the directors I work with, and keep a certain amount of freedom, because the more you produce, the more you develop your company and the more you have to produce to keep your company and your employees going,” said Luciani, whose banner has a staff of five people.
She said Les Films de Pierre has, however, already picked up the pace over the last three years, shooting two films per year instead of one. “And next year, I’m planning on three,” she said.
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