an adaptation of Journey to the end of the night in the cinema? Louis-Ferdinand Céline himself dreamed of it. Abel Gance, Michel Audiard and François Dupeyron worked on it, without success. Céline’s novel is one of the last classics that has resisted filmmakers. Editions Gallimard and the copyright holders of the writer have transferred the rights to a new candidate, the designer and director Joann Sfar.
The contract was signed on December 3, 2023. It was not until early summer that it was added to the National Film Centre (CNC) options register, which lists adaptation projects. Gallimard is giving the rights to The Magical Society By Joann Sfar, the production company that brings together director and producer Aton Soumache. Alain Attal will also be co-producer.
The transaction was approved by the two rights holders of Céline’s work, lawyer François Gibault, who defended Lucette Destouches, the widow of the writer who died in 2019, and Véronique Robert-Chovin, a friend of “Lucette”The amount has not been disclosed. Neither the publisher nor the two rights holders were willing to respond to our questions.
The father of “The Rabbi’s Cat” confronts an anti-Semitic author
Joann Sfar claims that it is too early to know what the film will be like. According to our information, this should not be an animated film but a live-action feature film. The author claims to be “working on many other projects”. However, he knows that this one is not like the others. Céline was a supposed anti-Semite, author of pamphlets such as Trifles for a massacreJoann Sfar has made her Judaism one of the themes of her work, particularly with The Rabbi’s Cat (Dargaud).
“I have a passionate and conflicted relationship with Céline, for obvious reasons, explains to us. I read the Journey when I was 15 years old without knowing who Louis-Ferdinand Céline was. » He highlights old relations of trust with Gallimard, from which he adapted The little prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in comics and The promise of dawn by Romain Gary in a book illustrated with drawings.
The designer already has four feature films to his credit. Two animated films, adapted from his comics: The Rabbi’s Cat in 2011 (César for best animated film), and little vampire, in 2020. But also the biopic Gainsbourg (heroic life) in 2010 and, already, an adaptation of a novel, The lady in the car with glasses and a gun. in 2015, based on the thriller by Sébastien Japrisot.
A few years ago, Joann Sfar had already attempted an adaptation of Journey to the end of the night: a project, ultimately abandoned, for a television series co-written with the novelist and screenwriter Tonino Benacquista. This time he collaborates with Thomas Bidegain, screenwriter for Jacques Audiard (in particular Emilia Perez) and director of three feature films, including Suddenly alonein 2023.
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