French soft-core icon Emmanuelle is returning to screens.

Léa Seydoux is set to play the character in a new film inspired by Emmanuelle Arsan’s erotic novel, with Audrey Diwan, who won the Golden Lion in Venice last year for her abortion drama Happening, set to direct.

Emmanuelle — being launched in the Cannes film market — will mark the English-language debut for Diwan, who developed the script with Rebecca Zlotowski (An Easy Girl). Wild Bunch International and CAA Media Finance will introduce the project to buyers on Wednesday, May 18, in Cannes at a presentation featuring Diwan.

First published in French in 1967, Emmanuelle — which would follow the sexual adventures of the titular character through a series of explicit erotic fantasies — was famously adapted into the 1974 film directed by Just Jaeckin and starring Sylvia Kristel. The film would prove to be hugely popular internationally (and would become Columbia Pictures’ first X-rated release) and lead to a long line of sequels, alongside parodies and low-budget knockoffs (including the Italian series Black Emanuelle, which circumvented copyright issues by altering the spelling).



Alongside winning the top prize in Venice, Happening, adapted from Annie Ernaux’s book recounting her illegal abortion in the 1960s, also landed Diwan a BAFTA nomination. Zlotowski’s credits include the award-winning Belle Epine (Dear Prudence), plus Grand Central and The Summoning. In 2019, she directed her first miniseries, Savages (Les Sauvages), for Canal Plus, co-written and adapted from a novel by Sabri Louatah. Her fourth film, An Easy Girl, premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight in 2018 and won the SACD Prize. She is currently in postproduction on Other People’s Children.

Seydoux, meanwhile, is in Cannes this year with two films: David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future and One Fine Morning from Mia Hansen-Love.

Diwan is represented by CAA and Adéquat. Zlotowski is represented by CAA and Film Rights, and Seydoux is represented by Adéquat and UTA.

Adaptation rights for Arsan’s book were acquired by Marion Delord and Reginald de Guillebon’s production company Chantelouve.

EXCLUSIVE: Production has wrapped in Paris on Audrey Diwan‘s (Happening) anticipated erotic drama Emmanuelle, which stars Noémie Merlant (Portrait Of A Lady On Fire) in the title role.

We can reveal an exclusive first look at the English-language movie, which will also star two-time Oscar nominee Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive) opposite Merlant, Will Sharpe (The White Lotus) as the male lead, Jamie Campbell Bower (Stranger Things), Chacha Huang (Money Heist) and Anthony Wong (Infernal Affairs).

Inspired by the character and world created by writer Emmanuelle Arsan, the film shot in Hong Kong and Paris from a script co-written with Rebecca Zlotowski (Other People’s Children).

Plot details are being kept under wraps but Diwan’s film will deviate from the lucrative and cult 1977 movie adaptation of Arsan’s novel, which starred Sylvia Kristel as the wife of a French diplomat in Bangkok who embarks on a voyage of sexual discovery.

EXCLUSIVE: The success of Audrey Diwan‘s sophomore feature Happening made her next gig as a filmmaker an intriguing one. Her choice of project, created even more intrigue.

As we first revealed last year, that project is English-language debut Emmanuelle, inspired by the character and world created by writer Emmanuelle Arsan, whose 1967 novel of the same name was adapted into the lucrative and cult 1970s soft-core movie starring Sylvia Kristel.

Diwan’s adaptation deviates from that earlier movie and from the source material. We confirmed casting and production details about the movie this morning here, including a first-look image of star Noémie Merlant.Plot details have been kept under wraps, though Diwan told us last year that the contemporary movie will take place in a luxury hotel where Emmanuelle (Merlant) works and that it will “explore her quest for pleasure”. Unlike the original movie, this film will see its protagonist on a quest not for “discovery, but research.”

Below is our new interview with Diwan in which she discusses the production process, what we can expect from the project, her thoughts on the French Oscar selection process, and what may be next for her.

DEADLINE: Thanks for speaking to us as you wrap production. How was the filming process on Emmanuelle and what can you tell us about the movie?

AUDREY DIWAN: It has been fascinating. It has been a huge amount of work. It’s always strange to talk about a movie you haven’t finished yet, but I can say a few things: this movie is based on a quest for pleasure, and a lost pleasure. I try to tell the movie through Emmanuelle’s sensations. Each sequence is like an exploration. Winning the Golden Lion gave me the freedom to try something quite different and to explore. That was where the motivation for this movie came from.

DEADLINE: I enjoyed what you previously said that this movie was less about a young woman’s “discovery”, like the original movie, and more about a mature woman’s “research”…

DIWAN: I will admit something to you. I haven’t seen the whole of the original movie. I wasn’t born when it came out. I discovered the story through the book. When my producers handed me the book I thought it was interesting but I didn’t initially intend to adapt it. It’s funny, I first started reading it on a plane and I got some funny looks from people [the racy first scenes of the movie are set on a plane]. When I stared working with writer and filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski we discussed a passage in which there is a long discussion between Emmanuelle and a man about erotic pleasure. I started to think about where eroticism is located in our society today and how we have to fight against the sad idea of pornography. Eroticism is different: it comes with the idea of beauty, sensuality, it’s what you show and what you hide. The frame summons people’s imagination, and personally I love that, to collaborate with a movie I watch as an audience member, not only to watch passively.

DEADLINE: How much of a challenge was it to capture that experience on camera?

DIWAN: I was afraid. But that’s a good reason to do something. When I feel fear and desire, I trust that I’m in the right place. That’s where creation often begins. It didn’t take me long to realise we were doing the opposite of pornography, which asks people not to think about something. Eroticism makes you the subject. It’s easy to see the poetry. I had a very strong relationship with Noémie Merlant who is in virtually every frame of the movie. I wanted her to think about her quest and not to think about the camera, for her to exist and not to show.

DEADLINE: How do you refer to this movie in relation to Just Jaeckin’s 1974 movie?

DIWAN: I refer to the book, not the movie, but in my imagination this was a completely different journey. I wanted to be as free as possible. This film explores the movement from rigid order to freedom, and something cold to something warmer. The biggest omission from pornography is the aspect of human relationships. Eroticism exists in the mind as much as it does in the body. It is fuelled by a gaze, a look, a brief interaction…

DEADLINE: Did you have an intimacy co-ordinator on set?

DIWAN: I spent time with a number of different intimacy co-ordinators so that I felt comfortable doing the role myself. I wanted to be precise and for everyone to feel comfortable. But I couldn’t accept the idea of giving that role to someone else because sensuality informs the very core of this movie and they would have become too central. That said, there were times I called on an intimacy co-ordinator during the shoot. We spent a long time talking about it with the actors, both the female and male actors.

DEADLINE: What can you say about your plot?

DIWAN: I can say it’s about a girl who is trying to get back to pleasure. I always remember a line from Bergman’s Scenes From A Marriage in which Marianne says her “sensation” of the world is running “dry”. For some reason, that sentence hit home with me. I wanted to interrogate that notion of the world turning ‘dry’ for someone.

DEADLINE: Do you anticipate future restrictions on how this movie is shown in cinemas?

DIWAN: It’s funny how we relate pleasure to organs. I’m more interested in what goes on in the head of a woman when she gets pleasure, which isn’t easy to depict. But it’s not about filming a part of the body. I’m not trying to capture pornography. I didn’t feel any restrictions because I wasn’t looking in that place.

DEADLINE: Could we see this movie at Cannes or Venice?

DIWAN: If the movie is ready and has its place there, I’d be very happy to go back to Venice. Also to Cannes.

DEADLINE: Some eyebrowns were raised recently when Justine Triet’s film Anatomy Of A Fall didn’t get the French Oscar nomination. Something similar happened to your film Happening. Do you have any thoughts about France’s Oscar selection process?

DIWAN: I know they tried to change the formula after Happening. I don’t know how it works in other countries but I know this question comes up quite often in our country. But it also speaks to France having a number of movies that have Oscar potential, which is good. I think Anatomy Of A Fall can still get Oscar recognition even if it isn’t France’s official entry. I was blown away by the screening in Cannes. I saw Justine the next day and told her I thought it was an instant classic.

DEADLINE: Are you committed to another project yet?

DIWAN: I have two things in mind. It’s a little early yet to discuss those in detail but I have one book I received from Ed Guiney [the [i]Poor Things and Room producer], and there’s a contemporary French book that also blew me away. I don’t want my films to always come from books but I have a habit of leaning into books with my background.