European Films

French actor Guillaume Canet in Christian Carion's WWI drama 'Joyeux Noël' (Merry Christmas). Photo (c): Nord-Ouest Production / J.C. Lother.

After the boxoffice success of Claude Berri's romantic comedy Ensemble c'est tout (Hunting and Gathering), in which he starred alongside Audrey Tautou, and his own thriller Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One), for which he was crowned Best Director at this year's French Césars, French actor Guillaume Canet will reteam with director Christian Carion for another story of war after their collaboration on Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas). Allocine reports that their new collaboration as actor and director respectively is called Farewell and is an adaptation of the Cold War-set Sergueï Kostine novel Bonjour Farewell, which in its turn is based on the true story of a turncoat Soviet spy who furnished the French government with shocking intelligence material that helped bring down the Iron Curtain.

Farewell was the codename of Soviet secret agent Vladimir Vetrov, who in 1981 contacted the French government of François Mitterand to pass on important information he had gathered as a lieutenant-colonel of the KGB on the spy activities in the Western World. The role of Vetrov himself could go to another actor-director: the Russian veteran Nikita Mikhalkov, recently in competition at the Venice Film Festival with his legal thriller 12, based on the Sidney Lumet film 12 Angry Men. It was not immediately clear which role Canet would be playing in Farewell.

Carion is also in preproduction on La Guerre de l'eau (lit. The Water War), which has Dany Boon, who also starred in Joyeux Noël, and Mathilde Seigner (Le passager de l'été / One Summer) attached to star. Both projects will be filmed in early 2008.