Director Claire Denis’ Sci-fi Drama High Life Bought by A24

Variety reports that director Claire Denis’ sci-fi drama High Life was bought by indie film studio A24 after screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, starring Robert Pattinson (The Lost City of Z, Twilight) and Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Certified Copy), tells the story of a group of criminals aboard a spaceship traveling to a black hole. They’ve been told they’ll be freed once they study a black hole, but undergo sexual experiments courtesy of the scientists on board.

Rounding out the cast are André Benjamin (Jimi: All is by My Side, American Crime), Lars Eidinger (Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper), Agata Buzek (Redemption, The Reverse), Ewan Mitchell (The Last Kingdom, The Halcyon), Jessie Ross (The Frankenstein Chronicles), and Claire Tran (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Lucy).

Denis is known for her films Chocolat, Beau Travail, White Material and 35 Shots of Run. Binoche and Tran recently collaborated with Denis on Let the Sun Shine In, which made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in Director’s Fortnight where it won the SACD Prize. Binoche is known for her work in the film The English Patient, which won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1997. She was nominated for Best Actress for her role in 2000’s Chocolat (not to be confused with Denis’ Chocolat in 1988).

Writing credits go to Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Geoff Cox and Nick Laird. The movie is produced by Laurence Clerc, Oliver Dungey, Christoph Friedel, Andrew Lauren, DJ Gugenheim, Claudia Steffen, Olivier Thery-Lapiney and Klaudia Smeija. Production companies handling the film are Andrew Lauren Productions, Apocalypse Films, Alcatraz Films, Pandora Film Produktion and Madants.

The deal was brokered by CAA Media Finance, with Wild Bunch handling the foreign sales.