Pablo Trapero, one of Argentina’s most prominent filmmakers, has been tapped to direct his first English-language title, Thin Skinned Animal, for Euro major Studiocanal and Brit production powerhouse Working Title.
The film, which will be produced by Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner along with Tom Jacobson, is based loosely on Patrick Alexander’s book Death of A Thin Skinned Animal. It’s a story about love, friendship, espionage and government amorality. John Brownlow (Sylvia) has written the script, which follows a government agent who is betrayed by his superiors while on assignment, landing him in a nightmarish gulag. After years of imprisonment, he escapes and returns home to Berlin, where he is determined to settle accounts and pick up the pieces of his destroyed life.
The companies are eyeing a 2017 shoot.
Trapero’s most recent film, El Clan, screened both at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival in 2015. The film, which broke records in Argentina for best domestic box office opener, won the Best Director Silver Bear honors in Venice that year and snapped up a Goya Award last year for Best Spanish-Language Foreign Film ahead of its U.S. release through Fox.
A critical and festival favorite, Trapero has twice had films nominated for Best Foreign Language Film Oscars – Lion’s Den (Leonera) and Carancho – while his film White Elephant (Elefante Blanco) premiered in Un Certain Regard at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. His first feature Crane’s World, won the Critics Prize in Venice in 1999.
“We have been admirers of Pablo Trapero’s work at the Cannes Film Festival with Leonera, Carancho and Elefante Blanco,” said Ron Halpern, EVP of international productions and acquisitions at Studiocanal. “He is one of the most interesting and exciting directors working today. His most recent film El Clan was such a well-directed film and won a well-deserved Silver Lion at Venice. We knew we wanted to find a way to work together and we are thrilled to be able to be his partner on his first English language film.”
Jacobson said: “We are thrilled to be working with Pablo Trapero, a truly gifted filmmaker who is bringing his original voice to this exciting story.”
Trapero is repped by CAA and Peter Nichols and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler and Feldman.
Sourced from Deadline – written by Mike Fleming Jr.