Elsa Zylberstein, the French actor-producer whose timely movie “Simone: Woman of a Century” was recently released in the U.S., has signed with CAA for representation.
The actor’s performance as Simone Veil, an Auschwitz survivor who became a feminist icon and human rights activist, earned critical praise and struck a chord with French audiences, becoming one of the highest-grossing French films of 2022.
Distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films in the U.S., Olivier Dahan’s biopic sheds light on how Veil became a revered figure within France’s male-dominated political world after surviving the camps, championing the 1975 law that legalized abortion in France. The Holocaust Museum in L.A. will host a special screening of the movie on Nov. 29 in the presence of Zylberstein. A similar event is also being organized in Washington, D.C.
The actor has also launched production vehicles in France and the U.S. to develop female-driven projects on both sides of the Atlantic. One of the only French actor-producers to be signed by CAA, Zylberstein will gain access to a wide pool of creatives and talent to work on her projects.
Zylberstein tells PvNew she has been inspired by American actors-turned-producers such as Reese Witherspoon, Cate Blanchett and Jessica Chastain, and says she decided to step behind the camera to make inspirational movies after the pandemic. “Seeing how successful ‘Simone’ was, I realized that people want to go to the cinemas to see films that have a meaning, or at least some truth and some sincerity,” Zylberstein says.
One of her ambitious projects is a spy thriller about Sylvia Rafael, a South African-born Israeli Mossad agent who was involved in the fateful Lillehammer case, a 1973 assassination attempt on Ali Hassan Salameh. Peter Landesman (“Concussion”) is attached to direct the film.
Zylberstein is also developing a film about the passionate romance between French feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir (who she will play) and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nelson Algren. Spanning nearly two decades from 1947 to 1964, the movie will be penned by Oscar-winning writer Christopher Hampton and directed by Anne Fontaine.
The actor is also attached to star as French stage icon Sarah Bernhardt in “The Rivals,” a U.S. film revolving around her love-hate relationship with Eleonora Duse. The long-gestating project was previously developed by Steven Spielberg and has since been taken over by Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks, with Robin Swicord (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) on board to write and direct.
Zylberstein remains best known internationally for her Cesar-winning performance in “I’ve Loved You So Long” in which she starred opposite Kristin Scott Thomas.
Other projects on her robust slate include a TV series with Gaumont U.S. about intimacy therapist Esther Perel as well as “Kingdom of Hope,” a movie about Elise Boghossian, a French acupuncturist and humanitarian worker in a war zone who has healed child victims of ISIS. The film will be directed by Oscar-winning Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad (“The Cave”).
