EXCLUSIVE: Be For Films has acquired international sales rights to veteran documentarian Claire Simon’s Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through The
EXCLUSIVE: Be For Films has acquired international sales rights to veteran documentarian Claire Simon’s Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through The Eyes Of High School Students, about the Nobel prize-winning French writer.
The documentary is set to world premiere in the Giornate degli Autori sidebar at the upcoming Venice Film Festival.
The film is set in French classrooms and explores how Ernaux’s work is taught in French schools and the impact it has had on both teachers and students, particularly how her books continue to inspire juvenile people in their quest for freedom and self-determination.
The French-language film is produced by Emmanuel Perreau for Rosebud Productions in collaboration with France Télévisions and in association with Michel Klein of Les Films Hatari.
It is prolific filmmaker Simon’s follow-up to Elementary, a documentary set in a public elementary school outside of Paris that premiered as a special screening at Cannes in 2024, and Our Body, about patients in a gynaecology ward of a Paris hospital which launched in Berlin in 2023.
Ernaux, a major figure in contemporary feminism, was the first Frenchwoman to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 2022. Her books have been adapted into some 20 plays and three feature films, including Audrey Diwan’s 2021 Venice Golden Lion winner Happening.
Judith Godreche recently announced that she will direct her debut feature, A Girl’s Story (Memoire de Fille), based on Ernaux’s autobiographical novel.
Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through The Eyes Of High School Students will premiere as a “Special Event” screening in the Giornate degli Autori sidebar.
Brussels-based Be For Films’ CEO and head of sales Pamela Leu said: “Claire Simon’s sensitive and insightful approach, combined with the deeply personal engagement of young readers with Annie Ernaux’s work, creates a film that feels both urgent and timeless.”
The company will launch sales in Venice. Its slate also includes Tamara Stepanyan’s In The Land Of Arto starring Camille Cottin and Zar Amir which will open Locarno Film Festival on August 6.
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