EXCLUSIVE:Happeningwriter-directorAudrey Diwanhas recalibrated her English-language debutEmmanuelle, which is a working title.
The Veterans and CAA Media Finance will be discussing the script with buyers at this weeksEuropean Film Market.
The film is inspired by the character and world created by Emmanuelle Arsan.
Noémie Merlant and Audrey DiwanLaurent Tangy/Getty Images
Diwan wrote the script with Rebecca Zlotowski (Other Peoples Children).
The new film will be produced by Chantelouve, Rectangle Productions (Happening) and Wild Bunch International.
I love stories told through the body, Diwan told Deadline.
WithHappening, I have spent the past few years exploring the idea of pain.
Then, I would say naturally, I wanted to explore pleasure.
And I want to embrace a grammar specific to the notion of eroticism.
Eroticism is based as much on what we show as on what we hide.
This is where the excitement comes from.
Diwan said she constructed an Emmanuelle character who was relatable to herself.
So my film will take place nowadays, Emmanuelle is a woman who is close to my age.
When we are not in discovery, but in research.
But how do we get out of loneliness?Emmanuelleis the story of a woman trying to let go.
The whole film is about drawing a path to the other.
Diwan sparked to the chance to set this journey against a specific backdrop.
The film will take place in Hong Kong, in the luxury hotel where she works, Diwan said.
What weave between them deeper and deeper bonds.
With a stranger in particular, a client of the hotel.
But I wont say more for now.
This is the principle, what we show and what we hide.
The filmmaker found an ideal partner for the characters romantic journeys in Merlant.
I love Lea Seydoux, I want to make a film with her one day.
But to me, she was not the character I imagined.
She embraces the idea of the character, able to play both authority and seduction.
Noemie redefines the French woman.
Her attitude, her smile, that hint of insolence that often surfaces.
The film requires enormous involvement, mutual trust.
And I know I found the one.
