Changing the water of flowers: Jean-Pierre Jeunet will adapt the bestseller with Leïla Bekhti

The next film from the director of Amélie Poulain will tell the story of a cemetery guardian, based on the bestselling novel by Valérie Perrin.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet is back in theaters. Paris Match has just announced its next project : this will be the adaptation of Change the flower watera novel by Valérie Perrin published in 2018 and a big bookstore success. Leila Bekhti will play the main role, that of Violette Toussaint, cemetery guardian in Burgundy, who survives between two worlds (the living, the dead) and who hides a funny secret. Fun fact: according to the magazine, it was seeing Leïla Bekhti during her appearance in Hot Ones that Jeunet clicked for her.

Valérie Perrin, companion, screenwriter and set photographer of Claude Lelouch, says that the latter believes that Jeunet “is the best possible choice” to adapt his novel. “Claude considers that there is a before and an after Amélie Poulain in the cinema, that Jean-Pierre brought something new”declares the author to Paris Match. “That’s why I’m delighted with what’s happening. I wrote the book and Jean-Pierre is going to paint it.”

“To adapt a story, whatever it may be, you must first love the medium. If it bores me, I can’t do it. Afterwards, I always naturally knew how to cut a story for the cinema. D ‘others know how to draw but for me, I just need to close my eyes to visualize a scene’explains Jeunet. “And while working on this script, I realized that I had to calm down, that I wouldn’t necessarily need to put the camera on the ceiling to create a beautiful cinema effect. It had to be kept simple and sober. My inspiration for this film was drawn from the 1957 Russian film, When the storks passby Mikhail Kalatozov.”

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s last film at the cinema dates back to 2013: it was The Extravagant Journey of the young and prodigious TS Spivetfilmed in English, which was a box office failure. Since then, the filmmaker has shot (in French) the science fiction fable BigBug for Netflix. And before all this, it was Micmacs at tire-larigot (1.2 million admissions in France in 2009), A long engagement Sunday (4.4 million admissions in 2004) and obviously The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain and its 8.6 million admissions in 2001. And yes, The Count of Monte Cristo with Pierre Niney (9.3 million admissions) beat Amélie…

Change the flower water will be produced and distributed by StudioCanal, with Canal+ and Netflix. Paris Match indicates that filming should begin in May 2025, but no release date has yet been given.

My cult scene from The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet