09/01/2019 - Emily Beecham, Ben Whishaw and Kerry Fox star in the first English-language film by the Austrian director. A Coop 99 and The Bureau production, sold by Coproduction Office

Emily Beecham and Ben Whishaw in Little Joe (© Christa Amadea/coop99 filmproduktion)

Thrice selected for the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes (with Lovely Rita [+see also:
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film profile] in 2001, Hotel [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2004 and Amour Fou [+see also:
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film profile] in 2014), and once in competition at Venice in 2009 with Lourdes [+see also:
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interview: Jessica Hausner
film profile] (which won the FIPRESCI prize on the Lido before winning the European Film Award for Best Actress in 2010), the Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner is currently working on the post-production of her fifth feature and her first English-language film, a thriller psychological entitled Little Joe [+see also:
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interview: Jessica Hausner
film profile].

The film stars the Anglo-American actress Emily Beecham (nominated for a BIFA in 2017 for Best Actress for Daphne [+see also:
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film profile] , winner of awards at Edinburgh and Turin and known for her performance in the TV series In the Badlands), the British actor Ben Whishaw (winner of a Golden Globe in 2019 for Best Supporting Actor for the miniseries A Very English Scandal [+see also:
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series profile], also appreciated as Q in the last two James Bond films, as well as Bright Star [+see also:
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film profile] and I'm Not There) and New Zealand's Kerry Fox (known for her performance in An Angel at my Table, winner of the Best Actress award at Berlin in 2001 for Intimacy, and also due to star in Bright Star).

Written by Jessica Hausner and the French writer Géraldine Bajard, the film is about a plant created via genetic engineering that appears to produce curious changes in the people and animals who come into contact with it.

Produced by the Austrian company Coop99 Filmproduktion (Bruno Wagner, Jessica Hausner and Martin Gschlacht) and the British organisation The Bureau (Bertrand Faivre and Gerardine O 'Flynn), Little Joe was co-produced by the German outfit Essential Filmproduktion and received support from the ORF, the BBC, the British Film Institute, the Austrian Film Institute, Filmfond Wien, FISA, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Arte and Eurimages. 39 days of filming took place from 11 August to 9 October in Austria and Liverpool with Martin Gschlacht as the director of photography. The film’s international sales are being handled by Coproduction Office (while The Bureau Sales is handling UK-based sales), with the production forecast to be ready by spring.

(Translated from French)