Following up this year’s Cannes Palme d’Or win for The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke is currently drafting his next project and has already set his two lead actors in 79 year-old French veteran Jean-Louis Trintingnant and Haneke regular Isabelle Huppert, who will play Trintingant’s daughter.
The director is working on an untitled script about “humiliation and the physical deterioration of the aged” for a likely summer 2010 shooting start He told Screen that it was inspired by the suicide of his own 93 year-old aunt who killed herself rather than face the indignities of old age.
He said that he is still looking for a third lead to play the old woman.
Les Films du Losange, which produced and sold The White Ribbon, will reteam with Haneke for the upcoming project. Sales are likely to commence at Berlin.
Huppert, who presided over the jury that handed Haneke the Palme d’Or this past May, previously worked with the director in 2003’s The Time Of The Wolf and in 2002’s multi-award winning The Piano Teacher, which brought Huppert herself the top acting prize at Cannes.
Trintignant’s last major role was in Patrice Chereau’s Cesar-awarded Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train in 1998.
Sony Pictures Classics will release The White Ribbon in December in the US.
Additional reporting by Nancy Tartaglione and Mike Goodridge
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