Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov, whose latest feature, “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” premieres next week at the Cannes Film Festival, has lined up a star-studded cast for his first French-language film, “Après,” which is currently in production.
The French cast is led by Ludivine Sagnier (“Lupin,” “And Their Children After Them,” “Peter Pan”), Fanny Ardant (“The Young Lovers,” “8 Women”), Vincent Macaigne (“Maria,” “Colours of Time”), Guillaume Gallienne (“Yves Saint Laurent,” “Me, Myself and Mum”) and Louis Garrel (“The Dreamers,” “Little Women”).
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“Après” is produced by Ilya Stewart and Aleksandr Fomin for Hype Studios and by Serebrennikov, and is co-produced by Julia Zaytseva and Igor Pronin for Forma Pro Films, along with Umedia. Executive producers are Vladimir Zemtsov for Gold Rush Pictures and Max Pavlov and Svetlana Punte for Forma Pro Films. Pic is produced in association with Alexander Savitskiy, Kate Gosteva and Dmitry Venikov of T-VFX, as well as Blacklist MGMT, with the financial support of the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia.
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The film reunites the director with Stewart’s Hype Studios, the producers behind Serebrennikov’s previous five features, which have all competed for the Palme d’Or, including 2024’s “Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie,” ”The Student,” “Leto” and “Petrov’s Flu.” It also sees him teaming up again with several longtime collaborators, among them cinematographer Roman Vasyanov, production designers Vladislav Ogay and Lyubov Korolkova, costume designer Tatyana Dolmatovskaya and editor Hansjörg Weißbrich.
Serebrennikov and Hype Studios are back in Cannes with “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” which debuts in the festival’s Cannes Premiere section. Based on Olivier Guez’s bestselling novel, the film stars August Diehl as Mengele, the notorious Nazi doctor who found refuge in South America at the end of WWII. Told from Mengele’s point of view, “Disappearance” focuses on the Nazi war criminal’s fugitive years in South America.
Earlier this year, Hype Studios launched a co-production and finance deal with Gold Rush Pictures, as Variety exclusively revealed. The partnership will also involve a collaboration with Polish filmmakers Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert on “The Idiots,” starring “White Lotus” breakout Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn (“Ripley”) as Anna and Fyodor Dostoevsky. “The Idiots” is currently in production. As Variety previously announced, the Match Factory has boarded the film for international sales.
Hype Studios is also teaming up with Pathé to develop Serebrennikov’s TV debut, “Phantom of the Opera,” a modern adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s 19th century novel. The company is present at this year’s Cannes market with Kornél Mundruczó’s “The Revolution According to Kamo,” which is being sold by MK2.
