Sandrine Kiberlain’s “A Radiant Girl” Lands U.S. Distribution

Films

Sandrine Kiberlain’s “A Radiant Girl” Lands U.S. Distribution

“A Radiant Girl” is heading stateside. Film Movement acquired North American rights to Sandrine Kiberlain’s Cannes drama about a Jewish teenager living in Paris under German occupation in 1942. The distributor “has yet to set a release date but is planning a theatrical release with a virtual cinema component, as well as release to all home entertainment including VoD and digital platforms,” according to Screen Daily.

“I wanted to film the vital momentum of a 19-year-old heroine, Irene, in stark contrast with one of the greatest injustices of history, the Holocaust. I wanted to present this young French Jewish girl and her family — less threatened than the foreign Jews at the time — to modern audiences, as well as imagine their daily lives before 1942 became the horror we know,” Kiberlain, who also penned the script for “A Radiant Girl,” told us. “I wanted to depict the greatest joy, and show it stabbed by the unprecedented. I often think of this sentence from Hélène Berr’s diary, ‘The weather is always nice on a day of disaster.'”

“A Radiant Girl” marks Kiberlain’s directorial debut. The film screened in Critics’ Week at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Kiberlain’s acting credits include “Another World” and “Alias Betty.”

“We were struck by Kiberlain’s film and its stunning central performance by Rebecca Marder. They’ve given us a refreshingly modern depiction of a young woman coming of age against the backdrop of tragic circumstances that remain all too historically relevant,” said Film Movement president Michael E. Rosenberg.