Among the many embryonic films jostling for buyers’ attention at the film market of this year’s Cannes festival, Vincent Perez’ new film Alone In Berlin** is attracting plenty of interest thanks to a cast that now includes Emma Thompson, Daniel Bruhl and Mark Rylance{
Good Bye Lenin’s Achim von Borries has adapted Hans Fallada’s novel, itself based on a true story. The plot finds a couple living in Berlin, with the city in the grip of Nazi rule. They try to keep a low profile and avoid trouble, but when their only child is killed on the front line, the loss prompts them to a stunning act of resistance.
Perez, still probably best known to British audiences for his acting work in **Cyrano de Bergerac **or La Reine Margot, and producer Marco Pacchioni secured the rights to the book seven years ago and have been trying to put the film together ever since. With the German distribution deals locked up, Pacchioni and the other producers will be looking to find partners around the world for this one.
Thompson recently signed on to Robert Redford’s long gestating comedy drama**A Walk In The Woods **and is on screens now in The Love Punch. She’ll also be seen in Men, Women & Children, period drama Effie Gray and terrorism thriller Survivor. Bruhl, who coincidentally starred in Good Bye Lenin, will next be seen in A Most Wanted Man, and is part of the cast for The Woman In Gold. Stage veteran Rylance is in Sean Penn’s new film, The Gunman.