‘Mektoub: Intermezzo’ and ‘Canto Duo’ Might Never Get Released

A Le Parisian piece this morning details just how slim the odds are that we’ll ever see Abdelatif Kechiche’s “Mektoub: Intermezzo,” and “Mektoub: Canto Duo.”

"For Intermezzo to be shown, he (Kechiche) would first have to find a buyer (...) Finally, the question of the musical rights of the feature film would have to be settled, whose three hours of music in a nightclub generate staggering soundtrack costs."

The film has been inundated with legal issues that seemingly makes no buyer interested in it. There’s also the astronomical costs for the music rights, that weren’t organized before it premiered at Cannes, and we have t even mentioned the sexual harassment lawsuits against Kechiche.

I wrote extensively about the controversy in a 10.06.21 piece.

I guess you had to see “Mektoub: Intermezzo” at Cannes because it’s definitely not going to be released anytime soon, maybe ever. Its status in France has been relegated to oblivion, let alone the next chapter, ‘Canto Duo.’ A real shame, if you ask me.

I was a fan of “Intermezzo” when I saw it at Cannes 2019, writing that it was a “212-minute cinematic revolution. It means to destroy our notion of what a movie should be in 2019.”

As for the third, and final, chapter of the “Mektoub” series, it was already shot before controversy hit. A final cut has been ready for a few years now and Kechiche has just been waiting for Cannes or Venice to pick it up, the problem is that these two festivals don’t want to come near it … for now. Venice had originally scheduled a “special screening” of the film in 2019 before finally balking and letting go of the film.

Kechiche has already moved on from the post-production hell that was “Mektoub: Canto Duo” and is now preparing a new film, this one shot in Tunisia and produced by Why Not.