Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2022: #28. Jean-Paul Salomé’s La Syndicaliste

La Syndicaliste (The Sitting Duck)

Jean-Paul Salomé moves the pendulum from crime caper to crime thriller but with biopic elements in his second consecutive project with Isabelle Huppert. With a newly added supporting cast (Benoit Magimel, Marina Fois, Alexandra Maria Lara, Grégory Gadebois and François-Xavier Demaison), a 2022 shoot is imminent. Entering his third decade of filmmaking, La Syndicaliste (which will be known by international auds as “The Sitting Duck“) quickly follows La Daronne (aka Mama Weed) – which surprisingly didn’t receive any prestige film festival premiere but played extremely well at the French box office. This is produced by Le Bureau’s Bertrand Faivre.

Gist: An adaptation of the French novel “La Syndicaliste” by Caroline Michel-Aguirre, this is co-written by Fadette Drouard and tells the story of Maureen Kearney (Huppert), is a whistleblower who is found in her home, tied to a chair, the letter “A” carved into her abdomen, and a knife handle inserted into her vagina. Traumatized, she has no memory of the assault. But the investigation uncovers new elements leading Maureen to become a suspect.

Release Date/Prediction: If production begins this month or next, then Locarno becomes could be an option and perhaps Venice and/or Toronto is a possibility as well.