Samuel Goldwyn Films has unveiled the trailer for “Simone: Woman of the Century,” a biopic of Simone Veil, an Auschwitz survivor who became health minister of France and championed the 1975 law that legalized abortion in France.
Directed by Olivier Dahan, best-known for his Oscar-winning Edith Piaf biopic “La Vie en Rose,” “Simone” boasts powerful performances by Elsa Zylberstein and Rebecca Marder. The key cast is completed by Elodie Bouchez, Sylvie Testud and Olivier Gourmet.
The film was a box office hit in France, where it was released by Warner Bros and ranked as 2022’s third highest-grossing French-language hit with over 2.5 million tickets sold. Samuel Goldwyn Films is planning to release the film in U.S. theaters, opening in New York and Los Angeles on Aug. 18, followed by a wider rollout.
Since starring in “Simone,” Zylberstein has set up two production banners in France and the U.S. and is actively developing a raft of films and series, working with the likes of Oscar-winning Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad (“The Cave”), Ted Braun (Darfur Now”) and Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton (“The Father”), among others.
A driving force behind “Simone,” Zylberstein found partners to produce the film and convinced Dahan to direct. She first met Veil when she gave a speech in her honor at the Shoah Memorial at the University in Jerusalem, and the two stayed in touch.
“When I made ‘Simone,’ I felt that I was fulfilling my duty of transmitting something precious about our history to the younger generations. That’s what I want to do going forward,” Zylberstein said.
Watch the trailer for “Simone: Woman of the Century” below.
