GRAND CIEL by Akihiro Hata is premiering on 5 September during the 82nd Venice Film Festival. Producer Clément Duboin (ACE France) participated in the ACE 29 Annual Programme, and discussed the development of the project and the benefits of the workshop with us.
Vincent works the night shift on the construction site of a futuristic district. When a worker goes missing, Vincent and his colleagues begin to suspect that their superiors are covering up an accident. But soon, another worker disappears.
How did the ACE Annual Programme benefit you as a producer, and your ACE project?
ACE 29 was a truly unique edition, as the COVID-19 pandemic made it the longest ACE Annual Programme to date. We were able to have Content Development Workshop and Financing Strategies Workshop in the fall of 2019, before the lockdown, but had to wait until November 2021 for the Business Prospects Workshop.
By then, our outlook on company sustainability, growth, and management had shifted significantly, which made that final workshop especially engaging and refreshing, both personally and as a group.
For my project as well, the workshop has been decisive. From the initial feedback from my peers and consultants, the diverse perspectives they shared, to the ongoing mutual support we’ve maintained on each other’s projects.
What was the most challenging in getting this film from script to the screen?
The development and financing of GRAND CIEL took time and were inevitably slowed down by the pandemic. Within just a few months, the industry and the market had changed dramatically, and by the time we were ready to secure financing, the landscape was no longer the same as when we first initiated the project.
As an ambitious first feature, both arthouse and genre-blending, the project became a riskier bet after the pandemic than it had been before. At one point, we even considered scaling down our ambitions, but doing so would have compromised the very essence and uniqueness of the film.
Complicating matters further, during our initial preparation we faced difficulties securing our main shooting location—a massive construction site at night. This forced us to postpone filming for a year, reorganize our financing and production strategy, and ultimately bring the project together thanks to a decisive, organic co-production with long-time friend and ACE member Gilles Chanial (ACE Luxembourg) of Les Films Fauves.
What’s ahead for you and your company? What are you currently working on?
Beyond GRAND CIEL, we are completing Ulrich Köhler’s new film GAVAGAI, a co-production with Ingmar Trost (ACE Germany) from Sutor Kolonko, which will premiere in the Main Slate of the New York Film Festival at the end of September. With the same ACE partner, we are also in post-production on Ilian Metev’s new film PLATEAU, a German–Bulgarian–French co-production.
Together with Gilles from Les Films Fauves again, we are currently financing another project by a Japanese director based in Paris—an adaptation of a French comic book set in Japan, co-written by Yuki Kawamura and Raphaëlle Desplechin, and to be directed by Yuki Kawamura.
Alongside Akihiro Hata, writer-director of GRAND CIEL, we are also developing the TV series THE TREE (ACE Series Special 6), as well as a new feature film project.
