British comedian and director Simon Bird (“Such Brave Girls,” “The Inbetweeners”) is behind a new wartime comedy, “Pretend I’m Not Here,” that boasts a high-profile cast that features Sally Hawkins (“The Shape of Water”), Martin Freeman (“Fargo,” “The Hobbit” trilogy), and Matthew Broderick (“Only Murders In The Building”). The news hailing from trades such as Variety.
In the dark comedy set in WWII-era Netherlands, we see an ordinary couple hiding a Jewish perfume salesman during the Nazi occupation. The pic is a feature adaptation based on the Han Keilson novella “Comedy In A Minor Key” and has a script penned by Lisa Owens, as production is expected to begin later in the year in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
With the film heading to the film market this month at the Cannes Film Festival, we’ll see Cornerstone taking international sales while they’ll be collaborating with CAA Media Finance for U.S. rights.
An official logline for the Keilson story from Amazon reads:
A penetrating study of ordinary people resisting the Nazi occupation—and, true to its title, a dark comedy of wartime manner. “Comedy in A Minor Key” tells the story of Wim and Marie, a Dutch couple who first hide a Jew they know as Nico, then must dispose of his body when he dies of pneumonia. This novella, first published in 1947 and now translated into English for the first time, shows Hans Keilson at his best: deeply ironic, penetrating, sympathetic, and brilliantly modern, an heir to Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka.
I don’t think it would be hard to imagine the comedy is going to be taking pages from other comedic WWII films such as “Catch-22” and “Jojo Rabbit.”
- Christopher Marc
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