The next film from French director Mia Hansen-Løve (Things to Come, One Fine Morning) will be a period drama on the life of ground-breaking English writer and activist Mary Wollstonecraft.
Hansen-Løve is writing and directing If Love Should Die on the visionary 18th-century writer, considered one of the founder philosophers of feminism. Filming is planned to set to take place in the U.K., France, Scandinavia and Portugal, starting in 2025.
“My ambition is to capture with as much acuity and truth as possible this pivotal era and the life of a woman that cinema has never before looked at,” Hansen-Løve said in a statement. “Iconic in England, Mary Wollstonecraft is not known in France. That suits me: making a film about a figure who is too predictable, or too famous, has never interested me. I am attracted to characters engaged in a quest, devoid of certainties. The souls of artists, no doubt, but I am inspired by the most fragile, the most vulnerable among them.”
Arthouse streamer Mubi is backing the production, alongside Arte France Cinéma with Mubi’s sales arm The Match Factory handling worldwide sales. Co-producers include Caspian Films (Georgie Paget and Thembisa Cochrane), Les Films Pelléas (David Thion and Philippe Martin), Our Films (Lorenzo Mieli), and Norway’s Mer Film.
If Love Should Die follows on Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning (2022), an autobiographically-flavored drama starring Léa Seydoux, and 2021’s Bergman Island starring Tim Roth and Vicky Krieps. Mubi released One Fine Morning in the U.K. and Ireland. In a statement, the company said it was “honored to be working with Mia again.”
