Sony Pictures Classics Pulls ‘The Illusionist’ out of Sylvain Chomet’s Hat

After having paired with Sylvain Chomet on his breakout 2D debut The Triplets of Belleville, Sony Pictures Classics have grabbed the rights to the long awaited The Illusionist — a picture that was supposed to have premiered last year at the Toronto Film Festival and mysteriously Pathe picked the Berlin Film Festival showcase over a possible Cannes premiere. The Illusionist receives a pegged June 16th release in France and the U.K., which means SPC might want to rethink the notion of the year-end Holiday release for something closer to the dates of Telluride/TIFF.

The project was originally conceived by Jacques Tati as a live-action film — but the caretakers of Tati’s script passed it onto Chomet after having seen Belleville.

Based on an unproduced screenplay by the late Tati, The Illusionist is a dying breed of stage performer. Ever since rock and pop stars have taken away slightly more than his bread and butter, his worsening economic situation has forced him to accept questionable engagements in dubious basement venues, at garden parties or in bars and cafés. In one of these obscure establishments – a village pub on Scotland’s west coast – he meets an innocent young girl named Alice. The encounter changes his life completely. Alice is just as delighted by his magical tricks as everyone else watching the illusionist that night. The performance has been arranged in order to celebrate the advent of electricity on their remote island. But, unlike the others, Alice is completely captivated by our hero and is convinced that his tricks are truly the result of magic. She follows the illusionist to Edinburgh and keeps house for him while he performs at a small local theatre. Delighted by her enthusiasm for his art, he rewards her by ‘conjuring up’ ever more generous presents. Unable to imagine anything worse than disappointing Alice, the illusionist can’t bring himself to admit that he cannot really perform magic – instead allowing himself to be bankrupted by the constant present-giving.