Andrew Lauren Productions To Produce And Finance Claire Denis’ “High Life” Starring Robert Pattinson, Patricia Arquette, And Mia Goth. The film will be shot in Germany and Poland.
In the beginning of November Andrew Lauren Productions (ALP) has partnered with Alcatraz Films (France), Pandora Film Produktion (Germany), The Apocalypse Films (UK) and Madants (Poland) to produce and finance "High Life”, the English-language debut of acclaimed French filmmaker Claire Denis. The film, which stars Robert Pattinson, Patricia Arquette and Mia Goth, is a sexy sci-fi thriller about convicts who trade in their jail time by agreeing to crew a dangerous mission to a black hole, set on an intergalactic ship designed by renowned visual artist Olafur Eliasson.
Andrew Lauren and partner D.J. Gugenheim will produce for ALP, Laurence Clerc & Olivier Thery-Lapiney for Alcatraz, Claudia Steffen & Christoph Friedel for Pandora, and Oliver Dungey for Apocalypse. Klaudia Smieja and Beata Rzeźniczek will co-produce for Madants, in association with Match& Spark represented by Anna Różalska. Wild Bunch is handling international sales. The film is now fully financed and supported by Arte France Cinema and CNC in France, Film and Medienstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Filmförderungsanstalt, Arte/WDR and DFFF in Germany, developed with the British Film Institute and Altaris in Great Britain and financed by the Polish Film Institute in Poland. The producers aim to go into shooting, planned for Germany and Poland in Spring 2017.
Lauren commented: “My family first turned me on to Claire Denis when they showed me “Beau Travail” and I’ve been a huge admirer of her work ever since. It’s very exciting to have Claire bring her ability to challenge how we think about the human condition and her unique visual style to the science fiction genre for the first time."
“High Life” is being scored by British musician Stuart Staples of Tindersticks, who has worked with Denis on numerous projects. Her team also includes long-time collaborators Agnès Godard as DP and Nelly Quettier as editor. World-renowned physicist and black hole expert Aurélien Barrau is on board as the project's scientific consultant. CAA will handle domestic US sales.
Through its participation in the production of “High Life,” Madants expands its catalogue of foreign co-productions. The company is currently co-producing Polish-Greek “PITY” directed by Babis Makridis (yet another collaboration with Neda Films and Faliro House Productions, known from such films as “Lobster”, “Before Midnight” and “Only Lovers Left Alive”); Icelandic-Polish-Danish “Under the Tree”, realised with producers known to Polish audience from “Rams” or Latvian-Polish-Lithuanian “Z pianą na ustach” by Janis Nords. Currently, two other Madants productions can be seen in European cinemas: “Park” – awarded in San Sebastian, the Polish-Greek debut of Sofia Exarchou with excellent camerawork by Monika Lenczewska, and Portuguese-American-Polish “Porto” by Gabe Klinger with Anton Yelchin; Jim Jarmusch was involved in the production of the latter.
