Vicky Krieps, best performance prize winner in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard for “Corsage,” will star as Sophie Toscan du Plantier in six time-Oscar nominee Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s “Re-creation,” which is being presented in the Venice Gap-Financing Market.
The docu-drama, which centers on the brutal murder in 1996 in Ireland of French film and TV producer Toscan du Plantier, has been co-written and will be co-directed by Sheridan, best known for “My Left Foot” and “In the Name of the Father,” and Merriman. The unsolved crime was previously the subject of Sheridan’s documentary series “Murder at the Cottage.”
Krieps garnered widespread acclaim with her breakthrough performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread” in 2017. As well as the Cannes prize, her performance in last year’s “Corsage” also won her the European Film Award for best European actress.
Sheridan said of the Luxembourgish actress: “Since our first meeting in Berlin, it was clear to me that Vicky was just the perfect choice for this role. She always looks like she has her feet on the ground but with an ethereal quality that allows her spirit to break any obstacles.”
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Merriman added: “Sophie will have her place in this film beyond the tabloid headlines that have become her legacy. We feel lucky to have Vicky with us and believe she will bring the truth to this character that she deserves.”
The film is being produced by Tina O’Reilly of Hell’s Kitchen in Ireland and Fabrizio Maltese of Luxembourg’s Joli Rideau Media. Sheridan is the executive producer.
The documentary parts of “Re-creation” will be shot in Ireland, France and U.S., whereas the drama will be shot on a sound stage in Luxembourg. The production, supported by Screen Ireland, Film Fund Luxembourg and Eurimages, aims for a theatrical release in late 2024.
Merriman is an Irish artist and filmmaker. He directed “The State of Being Human” in 2014 and the Sheridan-produced “Rock Against Homelessness” in 2020. He has made music videos and worked with such artists as Glen Hansard, Aslan, Tolo Makay, Gilbert O’Sullivan and The Pillow Queens.
Sheridan, who is attending the Venice Gap Financing Market, part of the Venice Film Festival‘s industry activities, said: “‘Re-creation’ is a hybrid film between fiction and reality. I began my career on a theater stage, writing and making plays, before moving into film. Fiction has been my form of expression throughout my creative career.”
“In ‘Re-creation’ these elements come together to interrogate the reality behind one of the cases that polarized public opinion in Ireland and France – and not only – from the late 90s on, the brutal murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.”
“We want to use fiction, which is the expressive form I know best, to challenge the whole narrative around this case, built on negligence and convenient truths.”
Merriman added: “As in a game of mirrors, an infinite gallery, we will pull back from reality to show not only how certain details deemed irrelevant fit into the picture, but also show the entire creative process of how the film is fabricated, which becomes an integral part of the film itself, giving a completely new perspective.”
Toscan du Plantier’s life was layered and intriguing. She was a successful TV and film producer, as well as being one half of a film power couple. Together with her husband, the influential film producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier, they were the darlings of the Cannes and Paris film scene in the 1990s. “Re-creation” is set against the backdrop of the murder, which happened in West Cork, Ireland, on Dec. 20, 1996, while she was on a solo trip to her holiday home in Schull. Little is known about the reasons for this solitary visit. It was there that her life came to a bloody, brutal end.
Twenty-eight years later the murder remains one of the most compelling unsolved crimes in Ireland’s history. A new cold case review is underway.