By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY TAKES ALL U.S. RIGHTS TO FRENCH FILM “SARAH’S KEY”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

THE FILM WHICH IS BASED ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLING BOOK WILL MAKE ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

10 September 2010. Toronto International Film Festival.

The Weinstein Company preemptively bought all U.S. rights to  “Sarah’s Key” starring Kristin Scott Thomas and based on the New York Times best-selling novel by Tatiana De Rosnay.  Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner,  “Sarah’s Key” starts in Paris, 1942, where ten-year old Sarah is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting Jewish families as part of the Vel’d’Hiv Roundup.  Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard – their secret hiding place – and promises to come back for him, but she and her parents are dragged from their home forever.  Sixty-seven years later Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond (Kristen Scott Thomas), an American journalist investigating the roundup.  In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah, and to questions about her own future.

The novel sold over two million copies worldwide and has been translated into 15 languages and published in 22 countries. The film is likely to open theatrically next year.

Comments producer Stéphane Marsil, “When Gilles and I first met with Harvey in Paris about ‘Sarah’s Key,’ we knew immediately that we shared the same passion and emotion about Tatiana’s book, and that a film had to be made.”

Peter Lawson and Michal Steinberg from The Weinstein Company and Grégoire Melin from Kinology negotiated the deal.

Sarah’s Key stars Kristen Scott Thomas Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner with a screenplay written by Paquet-Brenner and Serge Joncour,  the film is produced by Stephane Marsil, edited by Hervé Schneid with music by Max Richter,  Françoise Dupertuis did the production design.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon