Music Box Films has acquired U.S. rights to “Full Time,” Eric Gravel’s visceral social thriller which is one of the five finalists for France’s official submission to the 95th Academy Awards.
Represented in international markets by Be For Films, “Full Time” world premiered at last year’s Venice festival in the Horizons sections and won a pair of awards for Laure Calamy (“Call My Agent!”) and Gravel. The critically acclaimed film went on to made its U.S. debut at New Directors/New Films.
Music Box Films will release “Full Time” in cinemas and on home entertainment platforms in 2023.
Calamy, one of France’s top actors, stars as a single mother who goes to great lengths to raise her two children in the suburbs while holding down a demanding job as head chambermaid in a Parisian luxury hotel. When she finally gets a job interview for another position she had long been hoping for, a national strike breaks out, paralyzing the public transport system. The fragile balance that Julie has established is jeopardized. Julie then sets off on a frantic race against time while juggling a reluctant babysitter, hostile co-workers, unreliable trains, a broken boiler, and a host of other mundane obstacles that collectively accrue unstoppable force.
“’Full Time’ announces a major talent in Eric Gravel, a filmmaker who’s managed to take the everyday struggles of a working single parent and craft an effortlessly involving, precisely engineered thriller that is accessible to audiences everywhere,” said Brian Andreotti, head of acquisitions at Music Box Films.
“Laure Calamy is in almost every frame of ‘Full Time,’ and delivers a performance that will leave audiences as breathless as her character,” the executive continued.
Andreotti described the film as a “tightly-wound race against a fragile social safety net,” as well as “universal experience and a galvanizing work of cinema.”
Pamela Leu, the founder of Brussels-based Be For Films, said she was “pleased and honored that ‘Full Time’ will be distributed through the acquisition of Music Box Films.”
“We have found a strong partner to release a unique social drama, multi-awarded film, acclaimed by the international press, in the U.S.,” added Leu.
Since breaking through in the hit series “Call My Agent!,” Calamy has emerged in recent years as one of France’s biggest stars and most versatile actors. She won last year’s Cesar Award for her role in Caroline Vignal’s romantic comedy “My Donkey, My Lover and I,” which was part of Cannes’ Official Selection. She has several movies currently playing in the festival circuit, notably Blandine Lenoir’s “Angry Annie,” which won Variety‘s Piazza Grande Award at Locarno, and Sebastien Marnier’s “The Origin of Evil” which played at Venice and Toronto.
