StudioCanal has announced that Oscar-winning filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) is set to direct an animated adaptation of Jean-Claude Grumberg’s La plus precious des marchandises, as well as co-writing the script with Grumberg.
Published in France in January to critical acclaim, the synopsis for the book reads:
Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter couple living in the depths of a Polish forest. The wife lamented on not having children.
Once upon a time there was a Jewish family, two newborn twins and their parents, who were arrested in Paris and deported to Auschwitz.
In the train that brought them to their certain death, the father made a crazy gesture. In an ultimate and desperate hope, he threw one of his twins out of the train.
One day, when the wife was watching a train that she thought was carrying goods, a package was thrown out of a window and fell into the snow. As though it were a gift from heaven, this small commodity turned out to be what she was waiting for so fervently. A child.
“This event will forever change the destiny of this tale’s protagonists, which will take us from the death camps to the intimacy of a woman who decides, despite the danger she incurs, to become the mother of this most precious merchandise,” said Hazanavicius. “Opposing the force of life to the industry of death, Grumberg’s tale succeeds in finding something beautiful to tell about what will forever remain a stain in the history of mankind.”
Production on the film is set to begin in 2020 ahead of a release in 2022.
