Mubi to Produce French Director Mia Hansen-Løve’s Next Film, ‘If Love Should Die,’ About Pioneering English Writer Mary Wollstonecraft
01.07.2024 - 07:21
/ variety.com
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Mia Hansen-Løve, one of France’s leading filmmakers whose movies have played at Cannes, Berlin and Toronto, will next direct “If Love Should Die,” an ambitious feature film about the life of visionary English writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. Mubi, the auteur-driven global distribution and streaming powerhouse, is producing “If Love Should Die” with Georgina Paget and Thembisa Cochrane at U.K.
banner Caspian Films (“The Colour Room”); “Anatomy of a Fall” producer David Thion and Philippe Martin at Paris-set Les Films Pelléas; Norway’s Mer Film, Lorenzo Mieli for Our Films and Arte France Cinema. Mubi and Arte France Cinema are financing the production.
The Match Factory is handling worldwide sales. Written and directed by Hansen-Løve, the film will for the first time tell the journey of Wollstonecraft, a 18th-century feminist pioneer whose ideas resonate with our times.
“On the eve of the French Revolution, an impoverished young Englishwoman makes the bold decision to lead her life according to the ideals of the enlightenment,” reads the synopsis. Filming is planned to take place in the United Kingdom, France, Scandinavia and Portugal, starting in 2025.
Hansen-Løve, whose latest film “One Fine Morning” starring Lea Seydoux played at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight in 2022 and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics, has been wanting to make a project on Wollstonecraft for several years. “My ambition is to capture with as much acuity and truth as possible this pivotal era and the life of a woman that cinema has never before looked at,” said Hansen-Løve, who pointed that Wollstonecraft was “iconic in England,” but “is not known in France.” “That suits me: making a film about
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