EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has boarded gross sales on Thomas Ngijol’s Cameroon-set police investigation story Untamable (Indomptables) forward of its premiere in Cannes Administrators’ Fortnight in Could.
The characteristic marks a change in register for Paris-born, French-Cameroonian actor and director Ngijol, who’s greatest referred to as a comic in France, the place he’s a family identify.
Ngijol directs and likewise stars as Police Chief Billong who’s investigating the homicide of a police workplace within the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé.
A person of precept and custom, Billong is going through a private disaster as he struggles to keep up order within the streets and at dwelling, pushing him to breaking level.
The drama is impressed by Mosco Levi Bouko’s 1998 documentary Un crime à Abidjan about an Ivory Coast police commissioner, which Ngijol has fictionalized and transposed to Cameroon.
Ngijol entered present enterprise as a stand-up, getting his first break on Jamel Debbouze’s Canal+ present the Jamel Comedy Membership.
He broke into cinema in 2010 with time-traveling slavery-themed comedy Case départ, co-written and directed with Fabrice Éboué, adopted by Le Crocodile du Botswanga, Fastlife and African superhero film Black Snake.
He’s joined within the forged by a number of Cameroonian actors together with Danilo Melande (Bikers), Bienvenue Mvoe, Thérèse Ngono (Les Batailles des Chéries) and Ariana Ntomba.
Pascal Caucheteux and Anaïs Lonkeu at Why Not Productions are producing alongside Ngijol, underneath the banner of his firm Continual.
Why Not Manufacturing is coming off a high-profile 12 months because the producer of Jacques Audiard’s Oscar-winning, Cannes 2024 Jury Prize winner Emilia Pérez, with different previous movies on the pageant together with 2023 opener Jean du Barry, Ken Loach’s The Outdated Oak and Palme d’Or Winner I, Daniel Blake in addition to Cristian Mungiu’s Commencement and Past the Hills amongst others.
Additional titles on the Goodfellas Cannes slate embody Palme d’Or contenders Younger Moms, Renoir, Nouvelle Obscure, Fuori and Girl and Little one, as properly as Out of Competitors title Vie Privée, Cannes Premiere choice Orwell: 2+2=5, Midnight Screener Exit 8, and feature-length animations Arco and Little Amélie which debut as Particular Screenings.
