{"id":484151,"date":"2026-05-14T10:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T10:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484151\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T10:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T10:57:10","slug":"catherine-breillat-to-direct-german-cousin-based-on-simenon-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484151\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Breillat To Direct ‘German Cousin’, Based On Simenon Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE<\/strong>: Veteran French filmmaker Catherine Breillat<\/a>, whose latest film Last Summer (2023) played in Cannes<\/a> Competition and scored multiple C\u00e9sar and Lumiere nominations, is next writing and directing The German Cousin<\/a>, an adaptation of Georges Simenon novel The Krull House.<\/p>\n

\n\tBreillat is re-teaming on the project with her Last Summer producer Sa\u00efd Ben Sa\u00efd of SBS Productions, producer of Elle and Cannes 2026 Competition entry The Man I Love.<\/p>\n

\n\tFilming is being lined up for late 2027 on the project about small-town groupthink in 1930s Europe; Simenon\u2019s 1939 novel is considered a prophetic study of race hatred and mass hysteria. Pyramide International is handling sales and is at Cannes discussing the project with potential partners.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe synopsis reads: \u201cAt the very edge of the city, on the border between the industrial outskirts and the countryside, directly facing a lock \u2014 the central character of the story \u2014 stands a modest grocery caf\u00e9: Chez Krull. It has belonged for thirty years to a family of German immigrants who became French citizens. Yet Cornelius Krull, the patriarch, speaks only a German dialect and never utters more than two words. This venerable man of few words, the family\u2019s tutelary figure, seems to conceal heavy secrets.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOn the eve of the Second World War, the few nearby residents prefer to shop in town rather than \u201cfeed the Krauts.\u201d The grocery survives thanks to passing bargemen and the drifters from the outskirts who frequent the caf\u00e9. Maria, austere and deeply pious, runs the business with an iron hand, obsessed with making the family\u2019s origins forgotten. Joseph, her eldest son, is completing a thesis on pneumothorax and preparing to become a doctor. Liesbeth, the youngest daughter, practices the piano relentlessly and dreams of concerts abroad. Anna, the self-sacrificing one, keeps the house while listening to Fr\u00e9hel, Maurice Chevalier, or Berthe Sylva on the radio.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe family\u2019s fragile balance is disrupted by the unexpected arrival of Hans, a flamboyant German cousin who has come to \u201cperfect his French.\u201d Elegant, carefree, provocative, he immediately charms Liesbeth and deeply irritates the others. But behind his apparent ease, Hans is an impostor: everything about him is calculated. A virtuoso liar, a social tightrope walker, he observes and manipulates.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen the body of a young woman, strangled and raped, is found in the lock, the Krulls\u2019 fate is overturned. Already suspected during previous tragedies, the family becomes the target of rumor. Joseph, too awkward with women, is quickly singled out as the culprit. Signs of hatred multiply: insults, vandalism, threats. Soon, the crowd gathers and further tragedy is in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBreillat, who has had five films play at the Cannes Film Festival, told us today: \u201cI find in Simenon\u2019s novel a singular modernity, a resonance with our own era. However, in order to preserve its universality and subtlety, it seems essential to me not to transpose it crudely into the present day, but rather to retain its dimension as a parable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker expanded: \u201cThe novel opens onto perspectives far broader than a mere family chamber drama. Like Proust, who was reproached for being a \u201cdigger of details,\u201d claimed himself: it is precisely the details that matter. I deeply share this idea, and it is also one of cinema\u2019s privileges, particularly through the close-up. Details give strength and meaning to a scene. They also make it possible, in a period film, to avoid an excessive deployment of means: mastering the frame, the number of extras, the visible elements, is a way of preserving accuracy without creating artifice or giving an impression of lack. I have always lacked resources, never details. I am often my own prop master. In this respect, Simenon\u2019s novel is material of remarkable richness, full of subtleties, gestures, customs and habits observed with an almost clinical acuity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe continued: \u201cBeneath the guise of a muted family chronicle, the story shifts, through the eruption of a horrific crime, toward something far more terrifying: the dissolution of the individual into the crowd. When the crowd acts \u201cas one man,\u201d its opinion becomes \u201ccollective opinion.\u201d The phenomenon of lynching has always fascinated and terrified me, whether physical or mediated. The lyncher always assumes the mask of the vigilante: the supposedly legitimate crime, in eyes blinded by anger, justifies the one he himself is about to commit. More generally, all forms of fascism begin this way. To me, this novel is a parable \u2014 both distant and incisive \u2014 of our own era: that of a society driven by a thirst for collective and summary justice, at the expense of complexity, doubt, and the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Veteran French filmmaker Catherine Breillat, whose latest film Last Summer (2023) played in Cannes Competition and scored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[10404,199290,211772,18,117,19,17,327,211773],"class_list":{"0":"post-484151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-cannes","9":"tag-cannes-market","10":"tag-catherine-breillat","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-the-german-cousin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116572575809834236","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}