tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

Updates! tMF just launched a new series of articles on The Vintner's Luck!

Part 1: Of Love, Wine and Angels, tMF begins series with an introduction to the book, plus a detailed look at some of Elizabeth Knox's most acclaimed works apart from the upcoming movie;

Part 2: A Tale of Two Actors, tMF puts the spotlight on the movie's two main characters - Xas the angel and Sobran the French vintner, and the actors chosen for the roles;

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One of this year's most anticipated films is The Vintner's Luck, directed by Niki Caro. While this is already 'old news' on the internet, it will be tMF's first-ever spotlight on an upcoming movie (more to come soon!)...

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Two of today's most talented young actors, rising French stars Gaspard Ulliel and Jérémie Renier, will play pivotal roles in the new Niki Caro film called The Vintner's Luck. The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by New Zealand author Elizabeth Knox. Both actors have already won acclaim - Renier is best known for his role in the Dardenne Brother's The Child, while Ulliel has starred in a number of high-profile films, including A Very Long Engagement, Strayed, and Hannibal Rising. It will not be the first time they have appeared onscreen together as they were cast in a previous film entitled Brotherhood of the Wolf.

The Vintner’s Luck is an irresistible story of love, wine and angels. It tells the tale of Sobran, a peasant winemaker in 19th century France and his life-long relationship with the angel Xas as they grapple with the sensual, the sacred and the profane in search of the perfect vintage. The Vintner’s Luck stars Jérémie Renier (The Child), Gaspard Ulliel (Young Hannibal), Vera Farmiga (The Departed), Maria Ruiz (Summer Rain) and Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider). Time's Michael Fitzgerald wrote about Elizabeth Knox's novel and how it 'transport readers around the globe' to 19th century France.' Excerpt follows:

About the Novel and its Author:

In an early scene in Elizabeth Knox's novel The Vintner's Luck, 19th century Burgundy wine grower Sobran Jodeau shares a bottle of friand with an angel, who will return each midsummer for the rest of Sobran's life to advise him on matters of love, God and viticulture:

"'A young wine,' the angel said. 'Reserve a bottle and we can drink it together when it's old.'"

Knox is a writer worth cellaring. With four novels and three novellas over the past 14 years, she has flirted with fame in her New Zealand homeland, traveling to France as the 1999 Katherine Mansfield Fellow and selling over 20,000 copies of The Vintner's Luck since its December 1998 release. But at 42, Knox is maturing into a sought-after literary export. Last week she brushed past Australia's reigning Miles Franklin Award-winners Thea Astley and Kim Scott to win the inaugural $A40,000 Tasmania Pacific Region Prize in Hobart.

Where previous New Zealand literary heroines such as Mansfield and Janet Frame journeyed to Europe to find themselves, Knox travels mostly in her imagination -and via the Internet (next month sees the launch of her website).

For Vintner she never set foot in Burgundy; instead, she says, a fevered dream set the story in motion: "I was having a conversation with this being who was hidden in the shadows of the trees and the shadows were like wings, and the angel was telling me the story of this life-long friendship he had with a French vintner." Her forthcoming two novels leap from South America to the Outer Hebrides. In an age when authors sweat over research and authenticity, Knox's flights of fantasy are (to quote Vintner) "as invigorating as the air immediately over a wild sea."

About the Director: Niki Caro has become a powerful force in contemporary independent cinema. Her debut feature was Memory & Desire (Cannes: Un Certain Regard 1997).

Caro’s film Whale Rider won critical acclaim after its debut at the Toronto Film Festival in 2002, going on to become one of the year’s biggest independent hits at the US box office in 2003. Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for an Academy Award® Best Actress for her performance in the lead role. In Caro’s next film, North Country, she directed Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand to Academy Award®-nominated performances.

Pre-production commences at the end of the year, with principal photography starting in February 2008 in Auckland, New Zealand before moving in March to the Burgundy region of France, then to Belgium.