Mia Hansen-L?ve Prepping ‘If Love Should Die’ Biopic Of English Writer & Philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft
Renowned French filmmaker Mia Hansen-L?ve (One Fine Morning) has revealed her next film to be If Love Should Die, a biopic of 18th century English writer, philosopher, and women’s rights advocate, Mary Wollstonecraft.
Slated to film in the United Kingdom, France, Scandinavia and Portugal in 2025, the project’s logline is as follows: On the eve of the French Revolution, an impoverished young Englishwoman makes the bold decision to leave her life according to the ideals of the enlightenment.
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Wollstonecraft is best known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792, where she argued that women are not naturally inferior to men, even if they appeared so in her time because they lacked equal access to education. Wollstonecraft believed that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagined a social order founded on reason. Her ideas and writings laid the groundwork for the feminist movement, making her a pioneering figure in the fight for gender equality. Notably, Wollstonecraft was also the mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley.
If Love Should Die will be produced by Mubi, Georgie Paget and Thembisa Cochrane for Caspian Films, David Thion and Philippe Martin for Les Films Pelléas, Mer Film, Lorenzo Mieli for Our Films, and Arte France Cinéma. Mubi and Arte France Cinéma are financing production, with The Match Factory handling worldwide sales.
Les Films Pelléas comes to the project following five past collaborations with Hansen-L?ve. Mubi co-produced and distributed her most recent film One Fine Morning, starring Léa Seydoux, in multiple territories including the UK, and distributed her romantic dramedy Bergman Island, starring Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth, Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie, in the UK and Ireland.
In a statement on her new film, Hansen-L?ve shared: “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. 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.”
A spokesperson for Mubi said that the company “is honored to be working with Mia again. As great admirers of Mia’s work this will be the third film we’ve collaborated on with her, and we’re looking forward to bringing Mary Wollstonecraft’s extraordinary and pioneering life to the big screen for the first time through If Love Should Die.”
Coming off of the romantic drama One Fine Morning, which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and sold in over 70 territories, Hansen-L?ve prior to that helmed Bergman Island, which also premiered at Cannes. Other previous titles from the renowned French filmmaker include Maya, Things to Come, Eden, Goodbye First Love, Father of My Children, and All Is Forgiven. She is represented by Gersh and Intertalent in France.
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