The American-French Film Festival U.S. West Coast Premiere and Closing Night film "The Count of Monte-Cristo" was held on Sunday, November 3. It had a sold out screening followed by a Q&A with writers/directors Matthieu Delaporte & Alexandre De La Patellière, music composer Jérôme Rebotier, producer Dimitri Rassam, and actor Patrick Mille.

The Count of Monte Cristo had its world premiere, out of competition, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it received an 11-minute standing ovation, and went on to become a major French box-office hit this summer.

Directors Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, the dynamic screenwriting duo behind last year’s Three Musketeers blockbusters, now take on Alexandre Dumas’s swashbuckling 19th century epic of lost love and single-minded vengeance and bring it to the big screen with a stellar ensemble cast and lavish production values. The tale begins with a heroic young first mate, Edmond Dantès (consummate French film star Pierre Niney), freshly promoted to ship’s captain and finally in a position to marry his secret love. However, on the very morning of their wedding day, Edmond is wrongfully arrested for a crime he knows nothing of — a plot hatched by three of the most ruthless of rivals— and shipped off to the formidable Château d’If prison, off the coast of Marseille… But the story certainly doesn’t end there, as filmmakers and author, alike, delve into a microscopic examination of the nature of revenge, justice, mercy and forgiveness.

Writers/directors Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière have worked together for almost two decades. They have cowritten numerous plays, film scripts and television projects. Their feature screenwriting credits include Les Parrains (2005); Renaissance (2006); RTT (2009); 22 Bullets (2010); The Prodigies (2011); Il était une fois, une fois (2012); Divorce French Style (2016); It’s your Turn, Honey (2017); Fly me Away (2021); You Keep the Kids (2021); and Family Affairs (2022). As screenwriters, they’ve teamed up with director Martin Bourboulon on four projects: Daddy or Mommy (2015); Mom or Dad? (2017); The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan (TAFFF 2023) and The Three Musketeers: Milady (2023). They cowrote the script for two of Delaporte’s solo directorial efforts, The Jungle (2006) and Nobody from Nowhere (2014). Finally, they cowrote and codirected What’s in a Name? (COLCOA 2013), which was nominated for a César Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and The Best Is Yet to Come (2019).

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