Films in production or post-production
Guest project
ACROSS THE SEA
Synopsis
Nour, 27, has immigrated illegally to Marseille. With his friends, he lives a marginal and festive life... But meeting Serge, a charismatic and unpredictable police officer, turns his life upside down. From 1990 to 2000, Nour loves, grows old and clings to his dreams.
Tom Harari
Lilian Corbeille
P.R2B
Ayoub Gretaa, Anna Mouglalis, Grégoire Colin
Barney Production (France)
Sophie Penson
sophie@barneyproduction.com
Tarantula (Belgium)
Joseph Rouschop
Mont Fleuri Production (Morocco)
Saïd Hamich Benlarbi
contact@montfleuriproduction.com
Director’s statement
“Exile carried me away in a sweet dream, like a rum intoxication, not knowing where I was, attracting all miseries, understanding only once I was an old man.”
Slimane Azem, singer (1918-1983)
Across the Sea is a fresco, the story of a decade that begins in 1990 and ends on the eve of a new millennium. In it, Nour undergoes the irreversible experience of exile, which I want to approach in an intimate and political way. In the face of this uprooting and destructive melancholy, others - first through friendship, then through love - seem to be the only possible land of welcome and joy. Across the Sea is a melodrama inspired by Raï, about celebration, love and the passage of time. I’m hoping to convey this raw, unaffected emotion. This ageless sensitivity and the question that remains: can love save us from loneliness?
Biographies
A graduate of La Fémis and winner of the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation Film Producer Grant, Saïd Hamich Benlarbi is a French-Moroccan screenwriter, director and producer. He has collaborated with filmmakers including Nabil Ayouch, Meryem Benm’Barek, Faouzi Bensaïdi, Leyla Bouzid, Clément Cogitore, Philippe Faucon and Rachel Lang. In 2018, he directed his first film, Return to Bollene, which was nominated for the Prix Louis-Delluc for Best First Film. In 2021, his short film Le Départ was selected for 100 international festivals and won 27 awards and was nominated for a César Award in 2022. Across the Sea is his second feature-length film.
Sophie Penson joined Barney Production as producer and development manager in 2016 after studying at La Fémis. She has produced short films by Vincent Tricon, Ilias El Faris, Randa Maroufi, Saïd Hamich Benlarbi and Camille Lugan, and collaborated on feature films Slumlord, Deserts and currently La Mer au loin.
The Jokers
November—December 2023, Marseille, Casablanca
September 2024
