Locarno-bound title “Small Talk,” a doc-fiction portrait of the power dynamics at play among the daughters of the world’s social elite, has been picked up for international sales by the Frédéric Corvez led Urban Sales.
The Paris-based sales agency will bring “Small Talk” to market at Switzerland’s Locarno Festival where it was announced Thursday as part of Filmmakers of the Present.
A Locarno world premiere, “Small Talk” is directed by Geneva-based Mateo Ybarra and produced by Madeline Robert, both leading lights of the Swiss doc scene thanks in part to the roles at Visions du Réel.
Ybarra’s prior film, “Over the Hills,” examined masculinity in the Swiss Army. “Small Talk” continues his interrogation of Swiss institutions by examining another facet of Swiss identity: the education of women.
In it, Charlie, played by French actress Hélène Bares (“Evy & Me”), arrives at the real-life Villa Pierrefou in the hills above Lake Geneva, Switzerland’s last surviving finishing school, to attend a six-week summer course. The weighty cost, €30,000 ($35,000), means the students are near entirely from the world’s social elite.
