Nelson Algren: Last News

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Elsa Zylberstein (“Simone: Woman of the Century”) will star as the French feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir in a feature film that will be penned by Oscar-winning writer Christopher Hampton and directed by Anne Fontaine. Zylberstein’s Sonia Films will produce the film with Philippe Carcassone’s banner Cine@ and Master Movie, the production vehicle of Marco and Lola Pacchioni. Rather than a biopic, the movie will revolve around the passionate transatlantic romance between de Beauvoir and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nelson Algren. Zylberstein has scooped the adaptation rights of de Beauvoir’s “Lettres à Nelson Algren” from Gallimard. Through those letters, the film will chart the pair’s affair, which spanned nearly two decades from 1947, in the aftermath of World War II, to 1964. Two-thirds of the movie will take place in Chicago, and the reminder will unfold in Paris.

Oscar-winning writer Christopher Hampton is in talks to write a screenplay with French director Anne Fontaine about iconic feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nelson Algren’s transatlantic affair.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMatt Dillon (“The House That Jack Built”) and Charlotte Gainsbourg (“Antichrist,” “Nymphomaniac”) are attached to star in Fred Garson’s “An Ocean Apart,” a period drama about the romantic affair between French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and American writer Nelson Algren.The film is being developed by French producer Olivier Delbosc at Curiosa Films, which is presenting Xavier Giannoli’s Venice competition player “Lost Illusions” and Yvan Attal’s “Les choses humaines,” and Matthew Gledhill at Wheelhouse Prods.