Sony Pictures Classics Acquires Jeunet’s Violette

Sony Pictures Classics has secured distribution rights across the United States, Latin America and Southeast Asia for Violette, French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s latest movie. The deal marks the distributor’s fourth collaboration with Jeunet, after earlier work on Micmacs, Amelie and The City of Lost Children.

The film adapts Valérie Perrin’s bestselling novel Fresh Water for Flowers. Leïla Bekhti plays Violette, a cemetery caretaker whose life is unsettled by a stranger’s arrival. The encounter leads her to face concealed truths about her troubled past. Melvil Poupaud plays the stranger, while Matthias Schoenaerts also stars.

Jeunet adapted the novel with Guillaume Laurant. The film was produced by Mediawan’s 24 25 Films and Palomar. Sony Pictures Classics praised Jeunet’s combination of humor, emotional depth and whimsy, and said the movie would bring a fresh quality to his lyrical filmmaking.

The acquisition was negotiated by Sony Pictures Classics and StudioCanal, which is handling international sales. The distributor has not announced its plans for the film’s release.