EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has boarded sales on Academy Award-winning French director Michel Hazanavicius’ upcoming film The Third Hand for a TIFF launch as the production wraps and revealed a first image (see below)
Billed as a “fantastique”, silent film in color, the movie sees Hazanavicius return to the silent genre for a second time after black and white film The Artist, set against the backdrop of Hollywood as talking pictures arrive, which won five Oscars in 2011, including Best Film and Director.
The Third Hand first image
Les Compagnons du cinéma
The Third Hand revolves around young French soldier Paul Marchand who is wounded in battle in Verdun in World War One. He then wakes up in the laboratory of a mad scientist, who has grafted a German hand onto his abdomen.
The cast features François Civil (Beating Hearts), Bérénice Bejo (The Past), Rebecca Marder (The Stranger) and veteran actor Michel Fau (The Great Arch).
The feature has been adapted from Arthur Dreyfus’s 2023 novel by Hazanavicius and writer and director Thomas Cailley (The Animal Kingdom).
Hazanavicius credits since The Artist have included Jean-Luc Godard comedy Redoutable, genre picture Final Cut, adapted from One Cut Of the Dead, and animated feature The Most Precious Of Cargoes, about the trajectory of a baby girl entrusted to a peasant woman by her parents as they head to a concentration camp, all of which world premiered in Cannes.
Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat (The Shape of Water), who previously worked with Hazanavicius on The Most Precious of Cargoes is attached. Cinematography is by David Chambille, who won a César earlier this year for his work on Nouvelle Vague.
The director is producing the new film with longtime associate Florence Gastaud under their joint banner of Les Compagnons du cinéma, with the support of Patrick Sobelman.
The film is co-produced by Studiocanal and France 3 Cinéma, in association with Haris & Co, with the support of the CNC, the Île-de-France Region and Pictanovo.
Studiocanal is also handing theatrical distribution in France.
