Fontaine Pen: Elsa Zylberstein Isn’t Done with Simone…de Beauvoir

After recently playing her in Olivier Dahan’s Simone: Woman of the Century, Elsa Zylberstein will have another go at walking at playing a Simone…this time de Beauvoir. Variety reports that the never-inactive Anne Fontaine is part of the filmmaker package that will bring the book to film adaptation of “Lettres à Nelson Algren” to life. The project fell on the laps of Christopher Hampton who’ll move from his initial treatment to screenwriting mode this summer. We figure the earliest this could move into production is sometime next year. Zylberstein has an invested interest in the project having landed the book rights. She’ll produce via her Sonia Films with Philippe Carcassone’s Cine@ and Master Movie.

Fontaine will next move into Boléro starring Raphaël Personnaz, Doria Tillier, Jeanne Balibar, Emmanuelle Devos, Suzanne Clément, Sophie Guillemin and Vincent Perez (also produced by Carcassonne) and could then move into Monique et Matisse which was set to have Grégory Gadebois and Anamaria Vartolomei play opposites of one another.

The Simone de Beauvoir project will revolve around the passionate transatlantic romance between de Beauvoir and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nelson Algren. The film will chart the pair’s affair, which spanned nearly two decades from 1947, in the aftermath of World War II, to 1964. Two-thirds of the movie will take place in Chicago, and the reminder will unfold in Paris.