SND has signed deals in key territories for Frederic Tellier’s €15m biopic about a real-life poverty-fighting French priest L’Abbé Pierre: A Century Of Devotion, who founded the Emmaus network of housing shelters.
Rising star Benjamin Lavernhe plays the iconic figure who devoted his life to championing the poor and bringing global awareness to homelessness. The film had its world premiere out of competition in Cannes earlier this year and will hit French theatres via SND on November 8 on 600 screens.
The film has been bought by A-Z in Canada, Palace for Australia and New Zealand, iWonder in Italy, Splendid in Germany and Austria, A Contracorriente in Spain, Cineart for Benelux, Cinemundo in Portugal, JMH in Switzerland, Imovision in Brazil, Beta in Bulgaria, AJ Jet in Taiwan and PT Falcon in Indonesia.
The film spans 70 years from the early of life of Abbé Pierre, born Henri Grouès, in a monastery to action as a French Resistance fighter during the Second World War to his years as a politician and founding the Emmaus network of housing shelters. It film blends fictional sequences with television archives and newspaper cuttings, and using some of Abbé Pierre’s real writings as voice-overs.
The film also spotlights the oft-forgotten Lucie Coutaz, his right-hand woman for more than 50 years, played by Emmanuelle Bercot.
Ramy Nahas, SND’s head of international distribution, said the film that deals with war, the refugee crisis, poverty and homelessness encompasses “themes defended by l’Abbé Pierre more than 50 years ago that are, unfortunately, still relevant today, but which makes them even more significant.”
Abbé-Pierre : A Century of Devotion is produced by SND alongside Wassim Beji’s WY Productions and written by the director alongside Olivier Gorce.
The film is Tellier’s follow-up to 2022 box office hit Goliath (800,000 admissions) and 2018 release Through the Fire that sold more than 1m tickets.
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