A Radiant Girl

Source: France TV Distribution (c) Jérôme Prébois

A Radiant Girl

France TV Distribution has boarded sales on French actress Sandrine Kiberlain’s working titled feature directorial debut A Radiant Girl about a young Jewish woman living in Paris in the early days of the German occupation in 1942. 

Kiberlain wrote the original screenplay and directs. Olivier Delbosc produces under the banner of his Paris-based company Curiosa Films. Ad Vitam has taken French rights for a 2021 release.

Comédie-Française actress Rebecca Marder plays protagonist Irene, an exuberant 19-year-old with a passion for theatre and dreams of becoming an actress, who does not know that her days might be numbered. 

It marks a first leading big-screen role for Marder, whose feature credits include secondary roles in A Man In HurryMama Weed and most recently Spring Blossom, the debut feature of Kiberlain’s daughter Suzanne Lindon. 

Other cast members include Ben Attal, India Hair, André Marcon, Anthony Bajon and Florence Viala. 

According to French media reports, Kiberlain has been mulling the feature project for a decade and spent a year writing the screenplay. It shot in Paris this summer. 

The feature marks Kiberlain’s second time in the director’s chair after the 2016 short film Smile (Bonne Figure), starring Chiara Mastroianni as a renowned actress attending an eventful cocktail event being held in her honour.

One of France’s most popular actresses, Kiberlain has some 70 film and TV credits to her name including in Claude Miller’s Alias Betty, Albert Dupontel’s 9-Month Stretch and most recently Bruno Podalydès’s French Tech.

A Radiant Girl joins a burgeoning feature film slate for France TV Distribution which also includes Pascal Elbé’s upcoming romantic comedy Hear Me Out, Audrey Dana’s comedy Men On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown and Emmanuel Carrère’s social drama Between Two Worlds.