Divertimento

Original name: Divertimento
English name: Divertimento
Year: 2022
Run time: 110 Minutes
Language: French
Type (Colour/ Black & white): Colour
Country: France
Director: Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar
Producers: Olivier Gastinel, Marc-Benoît Créancier
Cast: Oulaya Amamra, Lina El Arabi, Niels Arestrup
Screenplay: Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, Clara Bourreau
Cinematographer: Naomi Amarger
Editor: Benoit Quinon
Sound Designer: Guillaume Valeix
Music Composer: Zahia Ziouani, Fettouma Ziouani, Elise Luguern
Production Company: Easy Tiger, Estello Films
World Sales: La Pecte

Festivals:

• Cinemania 2022
• The American French FF 2022
• Francophone FF Angouleme 2022

Director’s Selected Filmography:

• 2020 A Good Man
• 2018 La Fête Des Mères
• 2016 Le Ciel Attendra
• 2014 Les Héritiers
• 2011 Bowling
• 2010 Ma Première Fois

Director's Biography:

Writer/director Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar began her as a producer with Pierre Kubel and Frédéric Bourboulon to create the production company Friday Film, and producing films for directors like Antoine de Caunes, Pierre Jolivet and Richard E. Grant. She produced and wrote multiple successful films, before making her directorial debut with Ma Première Fois (2010). Her film Les Héritiers (2014) won the Audience Special Award and the Critics Special Award at COLCOA in 2015. Her recent, A Good Man (2020), which was an official selection at Cannes that year and took the FIPRESCI Prize at the Festival del Cinema Europeo.

Synopsis:

Classical symphonic music is everything for 17-year-old Zahia Ziouani and her twin sister, Fettouma. Nevertheless, living in underprivileged Parisian suburbs in 1995 with their Algerian background, they struggle arduously to approach their dreams – becoming an orchestra conductor and a cellist. Driven by determination, passion, and courage, they create their own orchestra, Divertimento. It will be a game-changer. Divertimento is inspired by the life of Zahia Ziouani, one of the few worldwide renown female conductors.