Breillat to Direct Simenon Adaptation 'The German Cousin'
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- Catherine Breillat is set to write and direct "The German Cousin," an adaptation of Georges Simenon's 1939 novel "The Krull House," with filming lined up for late 2027.
- Saïd Ben Saïd of SBS Productions is re-teaming with Breillat as producer after their collaboration on "Last Summer" (2023), which competed at Cannes and earned multiple César and Lumière nominations.
- Pyramide International is handling international sales and is at Cannes this week meeting with potential partners on the project.
- The 1930s-set story follows a German immigrant family running a grocery café in France on the eve of WWII who become targets of mob suspicion after a young woman is found strangled nearby.
- Breillat, whose films have played at Cannes five times, called the novel "a parable — both distant and incisive — of our own era" and warned that "all forms of fascism begin this way."
Why it matters: Breillat is attaching herself to a 1939 Simenon novel that she explicitly frames as a study of mass hysteria and fascism's precursors, and Pyramide is launching sales now at Cannes — meaning the project's political resonance will be part of the pitch from day one. With a 2027 shoot, buyers are being asked to commit to a parable about scapegoating well before it reaches screens.
