French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin doesn't exactly work quickly, and it's coming on five years since 2008's excellent "A Christmas Tale," his longest gap between films yet, but the good news is that not only is shooting underway on his next effort, some early pics have emerged as well.
First announced this spring, Benicio Del Toro and Mathieu Amalric are starring in "Jimmy Picard," in what looks like a potent two-hander. Adapted from the 1951 non-fiction account by psychoanalyst Georges Devereux, “Psychotherapy Of A Plains Indian,” the film will follow the true story of Picard (Del Toro), a Plains Indian of the Blackfeet nation, as he returns from WWII and begins experiencing unexplainable symptoms shortly thereafter. He then travels to the famous Winter Hospital in Topeka, Kansas, where he meets Devereux (played by Amalric, who also starred in “A Christmas Tale”), thus beginning a professional and personal friendship guided by compassion and understanding of Native American culture.
French magazine Telerama have the first pics from the film, which offer an intriguing tease of what's to come. Certainly, a Del Toro/Amalric psychoanalytic match up could potentially be amazing. The image below is apparently possibly from a dream sequence within the film.
Production got underway on "Jimmy Picard" this spring in Michigan and if we were to put a wager on it, we'd say this has a very good chance of premiering at the Cannes Film Festival. No domestic distributor or release date yet, but it's still early days. We're just glad we've got more more Desplechin coming our way.