Charades has taken on international sales to Charlie McDowell’s family drama The Summer Book starring Glenn Close ahead of the world premiere as a special presentation at BFI London Film Festival on October 12.
The English-language adaptation of Tove Jansson’s titular Finnish novel Sommarboken (The Summer Book) is about a young girl who spends a summer on a tiny island off the gulf of Finland with her grandmother and father after her mother’s death as they deepen bonds and work to heal emotional wounds.
Anders Danielsen Lie of Joachim Trier’s Oslo Trilogy and newcomer Emily Matthews also star.
The drama is produced by the UK’s Stille Production and Free Range Films, US-based High Frequency Entertainment, Finnish production house Helsinki Filmi, and Case Study Films, the production company co-founded by McDowell, his wife Lily Collins, and Alex Orlovsky.
Associate producers are MUV Capital, Finnish Impact Film Fund and Eye Eye Pictures.
The film shot on location on an island off Kotka, Finland, in the summer of 2023. Robert Jones adapted the screenplay from Jansson’s 1972 novel, which has been translated into 35 languages.
Charades co-founder Carole Baraton called the book “a masterpiece of Nordic literature, that Charlie McDowell has transformed into a unique cinematic work”.
McDowell told Screen: “20 years ago I read Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book and her words have stayed with me ever since.”
He added: “Getting the opportunity to make this film and shoot it in the Finnish archipelago, where the story takes place, has been a career highlight for me. I’m excited to show an audience the beauty of the nature in this part of the world and for people to see the magnificent performances from our actors.”
The Summer Book will be distributed in the Nordic territories by SF Studios, with a release in Finland set for January 31, 2025.
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