24/04/2015 - Yesterday, Les Films du Fleuve and Archipel 35 announced the addition of Adèle Haenel to the cast of the upcoming film by the Dardenne brothers, the shoot for which will take place in the autumn

La Fille Inconnue [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
film profile] (lit. “The Unknown Girl”) follows the quest of Jenny, a young GP who feels guilty about having refused to open the doors of her surgery to a young woman who was then found dead shortly afterwards. When she discovers from the police that the identity of the young woman could not be established, Jenny gets it into her head that she must find out her name... The character of Jenny will be played by Adèle Haenel, winner of the César Award for Best Actress in 2015 for her performance in Love at First Fight [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Cailley
film profile] by Thomas Cailley.

Jenny has therefore been added to the list of the everyday heroines created by the Dardenne brothers. Naturally, one may think of Rosetta, the first of them, played by Emilie Dequenne, the young woman who fights on a daily basis for her job – in order to find it, hang on to it, and get it back – but Lorna (Arta Dobroshi in The Silence of Lorna [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Arta Dobroshi
interview: Arta Dobroshi
interview: Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne
interview: Olivier Bronckart
film profile] in 2008) also springs to mind, the young Albanian woman who, while dreaming of opening a small restaurant, finds that her hopes are crushed by a mafia racket. Even up to that point, the Dardennes had shown themselves to be remarkable talent scouts, particularly for female roles (one also thinks of Déborah François in The Child [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne
film profile]). In The Kid With a Bike [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
film profile] in 2011, the Dardenne brothers for the first time offered a major female role to a seasoned actress, Belgium’s Cécile de France. And in their latest movie, Two Days, One Night [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
film profile], it was Marion Cotillard, the multi-César- and Oscar-winning actress who filled the shoes of Sandra, a young mother suffering from depression who rediscovers her zest for life when she has to once again fight for her job.

With La Fille Inconnue, which sees lead character Jenny the doctor attempt to solve the mystery of a kind of Jane Doe, the Dardennes seem to be opening up a new narrative field, even though we should still be able to rediscover the strong social grounding that is a hallmark of their films.

The movie is produced by the Dardenne brothers’ outfit in Belgium (Les Films du Fleuve) and is co-produced in France by their usual partner, the company owned by Denis Freyd (Archipel 35). It will be sold abroad by Wild Bunch.

(Translated from French)