Weinstein Company Makes First Toronto Purchase, 'Sarah's Keys' Starring Kristin Scott Thomas

Following fresh off the heels of the announcement that The Weinstein Company will be holding the U.S. premiere for Sam Taylor’s John Lennon biopic “Nowhere Boy” at the New York repertory theater Film Forum, comes news that TWC has made the first acquisition of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Deadline reports TWC has purchased all U.S. rights to “Sarah’s Key.” The French Film directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner stars Kristin Scott Thomas (who also stars in “Nowhere Boy”) and is based on the New York Times best-selling book by French journalist and literary critic Tatiana De Rosnay, which has been translated into 15 languages and published in 22 countries.

In the film, Scott Thomas plays Julia Armond, an American by birth living in Paris and writing for an American magazine. If anyone can pull this off it’s Scott Thomas who has been exquisite in both English- and French-speaking roles (see the breathtaking, “I Loved You So Long”).

Julia is assigned to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vél d’Hiv roundups, the 1942 Paris deportation of thousands of Jewish families to Auschwitz. While working on her story, Julia soon learns that the apartment she and her husband plan to move into was acquired by her husband’s family when its Jewish occupants were deported 60 years before. Julia resolves to find out what happened to the former occupants. The film then intertwines this present plot line with the past story of the 1942 occupants of the apartment and their struggles during the Holocaust.

The film will likely open in the U.S. sometime next year.