FAYARD

FAYARD
Rights Director : Carole Saudejaud / [email protected] +33.1.45.49.82.48
Rights Assistant : Ariane Foubert / [email protected] +33.1.45.49.82.47
ONGOING RELEASES
L’Ecume des jours directed by Michel Gondry
Based on the book by Boris Vian
Released in April 2013
Jimmy P. directed by Arnaud Desplechin
Based on the book by Georges Devereux
To be released in September 2013
Le Sang de la Vigne (TV Series – Ongoing broadcast on France 3)
Based on the series of books by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen
Three seasons (twelve films) so far
Les enquêtes du Commissaire Laviolette (TV Series – Ongoing broadcast on France 3)
Based on the books by Pierre Magnan.
Four films so far
SHOOTINGS IN 2013 – 2014
Respire directed by Mélanie Laurent
Based on the book by Anne-Sophie Brasme
SK1 directed by Frédéric Tellier
Based on the book “Guy Georges. La Traque” by Patricia Tourancheau
Tout, tout de suite directed by Richard Berry
Based on the book by Morgan Sportès
COMEDY
HOW SINGLE FATHERS SPEND THEIR WEEKENDS
Jacques Braunstein & Fanny Dalle-Rive
Setting
Contemporary Paris (or any other city)
Main characters
Jacques, 30’s, male
Basile, child, male
Mathilde, 30’s, female
A Basil's father—an overgrown teenager during the week and a responsible father on weekends—is trying to
strike a happy balance between going to clubs with friends and taking his son to costume birthday parties…
The hero, a journalist and a father who gets his five-year old son every other weekend and two nights a week, is clearly
out of his depths when it comes to modern parenting. He decides to do an investigative piece on life as a single father.
There are of course the weekends at the zoo, the meals at Mc Donalds and the extended bedtime hours, but there are also
the boozy nights out (when not with his son), the stilted birthday party conversations and the mothers who leave their
children with their boyfriends' fathers so they can go on shopping sprees! That's what being a thirty-something unmarried
father is like in Paris today.
As our hero hands in his copy to his editor, he wonders whether it will get the front-page coverage it so clearly deserves.
And whether he should risk moving in with his girlfriend, Mathilde—also a single parent—after his failed relationship
with Basil's mother...
A number of scenes are set in city parks, the oh-so typical backdrop to modern-day love affairs: a young father sending
his child to play with the child of an attractive unmarried mother on a nearby bench; tired fathers giving the eye to pretty
nannies; “women wearing tight jeans, not quite back in shape after pregnancy” and “women wearing loose jeans, not quite
back in shape after divorce.”
Both a bitter-sweet comedy and a moving true-to-life story of a young father trying to reconcile juvenile yearnings with
paternal duties in a complicated day and age.
Film and foreign rights
Film rights available
Translated and published in German
Find out more
Full text and press reviews available in German.
Read an extract here : http://www.rowohlt.de/fm/131/Dalle-Rive_Vatertage.pdf
DRAMEDY
JUST LIKE TOMORROW
Faïza Guène
Setting
The suburbs of Paris /nowadays
Main characters
Doria, teenager, female
Hamoudi, 20’s, male
Yasmina (Doria’s mother), 40’s, female
A story for anyone who has ever experienced living on the outside and looking in, especially from that alien
place called adolescence.
Doria is a fifteen-year-old high school student living with her mother in a working-class Paris suburb. Her father
abandoned them just a few months earlier, returning to Morocco to find a younger “more fertile” wife.
Doria isn't lost, however. On the contrary, she's the center of a world that is all her own: first of all, there's the TV, in
front of which she spends most of her free time. Then of course, there's the real world. But there is also Doria’s
mother, with her ever sunny disposition, and her pal Hamoudi, a survivor and a poet who has been in and out of juvenile
detention; he and Doria have lengthy conversations in the downstairs lobby. There is also Mrs. Burlaud, Doria's social
worker who “wears garter belts and smells of delousing shampoo, but who’s really nice”; and Nabil, her “nobody”
tutor who manages to give Doria her first kiss. Not to mention Aunt Zohra, who has a son in jail, and Mohamed, the
small-time grocer and crook on whom Doria has set her sights for her mother – but who marries someone else without
even inviting Doria and her mother to the wedding. But it doesn’t really matter. “In any case, my mom and I, we
couldn’t care less about not being in the jet-set”…
A comic novel about growing up, a sharp satire on contemporary society and a witty and insightful account of everyday
life in the French suburbs.
Film and foreign rights
Film rights available.
Translated and published in over 20 languages (including German and English).
Find out more
A number of offers have already been made for the novel's film rights, but the author was reluctant at first to have her
story modified. Today she is ready and would be particularly interested in her novel being adapted by a foreign director.
Full text and press reviews available in the above- mentioned languages.
Debut novel (a 19-year-old author)
THRILLER - POLITICAL
THE ACCIDENT
Ismail Kadare
Setting
Vienna (Austria) /nowadays
Main characters
Bestfort Y., 40’s, male
Rovena St., 30’s, female
The mysterious death of a pair of mysterious lovers
Vienna, Austria. The present day. A taxi swerves. Two people on their way to the airport are killed. Two lovers, a man and
a woman, both Albanian emigrants living in Vienna. The driver survives but is unable to say exactly what happened. Could
the accident have something to do with what he saw in the rear view mirror? Perhaps, yet he is in no shape to explain
either what he saw or why the couple had seemed so mysterious.
What we do know is that the man, Besfort Y., was a Balkan Affairs analyst for the Council of Europe; his companion,
Rovena, was an intern at the Archaeological Institute. For the past twelve years they had been having an affair in hotels
across central Europe. Their deaths—an accident, a double murder, a suicide pact?—attract the interest of both Serbian
and Albanian secret services, who turn up all sorts of interesting leads: Besfort may have been implicated in the decision
to bomb Serbia; and he was getting ready to go on a secret mission (something to do with war crimes) in The Hague;
he had also made certain disturbing remarks about Israel in the past. Rovena turns out to be equally enigmatic: Obsessed
with Besfort yet punitively rebellious, she was involved in two other love affairs at the time of her death, one with a
woman.
Although the deceased couple's affair seems have some mysterious tie to Balkan politics, the secret services abandon their
investigations. The case is then picked up by an anonymous researcher whose wild conjectures add to the already
questionable facts surrounding the couple's death.
So what's really going on? Is it a love story or a crime story? Or something of an altogether different nature—a smoke
screen, perhaps? The reader will keep guessing right up to the very last page.
Film and foreign rights
Film rights available
Translated and published in English, German(to be released), Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, Turkish, Portuguese,
Slovenian, Polish, Hebrew, Catalan, Norwegian, Romanian (to be released)
Find out more
Ismail Kadare is the winner of the Man Booker International Prize (2005) and of the Prince of Asturias Award of Arts
(2009)
Full text and press reviews available in the above- mentioned languages
THRILLER
THE GHOST RIDER
Ismail Kadare
Setting
Medieval East Europe
Main characters
Captain Stres, 40’s, male
A medieval village is plunged into a spiral of fear and suspicion following a chain of mysterious events.
Who is the ghost rider?
In a medieval village in Albania, an old woman and her daughter are at the center of a scandal under official investigation.
Doruntine, a young Albanian woman from a noble family – the Vranachs – has married into a family far from her native
Bohemia. Her brother, Constantin, had pledged to his mother to bring his sister home, if need be.
After no news for almost three whole years, Doruntine is awoken
by Constantin who has come on horseback to take her home. Constantin deposits his sister on the doorstep of their
family home, saying first he wants to go to church. When her mother opens the door, she can't believe her eyes. After
hearing her daughter's story, the two women are thrown into a state of shock, however: Constantin had been dead for the
past three years, and his mother and sister will be joining him shortly...
Had Constantin kept his promise from the beyond? Or is the
impoverished peddler, who claims to have brought Doruntine back to her native village, telling the truth? The street
vendor's confession had been extracted under torture...
Local police chief, Captain Stres, is given the task of investigating. Immersing himself in native lore, he tries to
untangle the villagers' beliefs, superstitions and fears in order to discover the truth.
Film and foreign rights
Film rights available
Translated and published in English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, Czech, Norwegian,
Danish, Polish
Find out more
Ismail Kadare is the winner of the Man Booker International Prize (2005) and of the Prince of Asturias Award of Arts
(2009)
Full text and press reviews available in the above- mentioned languages
THRILLER
THE 7TH WOMAN
Frédérique Molay
Setting
Paris / nowadays
Main characters
Nico Sirkis, 30’s, male
7 days, 7 women , 7 murders. Who’s next?
The brilliant and intuitive Nico Sirsky is obsessed with his job: he is the youngest ever commander of La Crim, the Paris
Criminal Investigation Division. A super cop with a host of modern-day problems—including a wise and beloved mother
(Anya), an overprotective sister (Tanya), a depressed and suicidal ex-wife and a teenage son (Dimitri)—his worldview
has been tainted by certain horrific cases combined with insufficient sleep, questionable eating habits and an
unfortunate divorce. Moreover, his incredibly stressful job has taken a toll on his health. After suffering from persistent
stomach pain for three whole months, he finally makes time to see Dr. Caroline Dalry, who also happens to be a real
knockout. Before long, the two have started dating.
Then the killer strikes, and Sirsky is put on the case. Marie- Hélène Jory, an assistant professor at the Sorbonne, has been
brutally tortured and killed. At first, everything seems to point to a highly-organized killer, perhaps even a professional.
The murderer had taken his time both during and after the horrific crime, carefully staging the crime scene to remove all
traces of his presence but leaving a message scribbled in blood on the victim’s mirror: “Seven days, seven women.”
Thus begins a race against time to stop the slaughter—before it’s too late. As the bodies start piling up, it becomes clear
that the killer is targeting victims somehow related to the chief investigator. The killings are a twisted, personal taunt of
sorts: “You can't protect the women in your life, can you? I am God and you are nothing, Nico!”
Time is ticking away. The murderer is closing in on Nico's innermost circle. Will the super cop be able catch the monster
in time?
Film and foreign rights
Film rights available.
Translated and published in German, English, Japanese, Turkish, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Estonian.
Find out more
Winner of France's prestigious Prix du Quai des Orfèvres for best crime fiction, named Best Crime Fiction Novel of the
Year, and already an international bestseller with over 150,000 copies sold.
Full text available in the above-mentioned languages.
THRILLER
MUSEUM
Véronique Roy
Setting
Paris - the Museum of Natural history /
nowadays
Main characters
Léopoldine Devaire, 20’s, female
Peter Osmond, 40’s, male
Marcello Magnani, 30’s, male
“Come back, Darwin, they are going mad!”
The researchers at the Museum of Natural History in Paris are all in a flutter. A meteorite, dated prior to the creation of
the solar system, has been discovered, proving the extraterrestrial origins of life on Earth. The age-old quarrel between
Darwinists and Creationists surfaces once again: Is Man the accidental product of evolution or the fruit of a divine
project?
The famous American paleontologist, Peter Osmond, and Marcello Magnani, Italian astrophysicist and priest, are
dispatched to the Museum in order to shed light on the affair. Their investigation takes a disturbing turn, however, when
the meteorite disappears and a series of macabre ritualized crimes starts taking place in the museum's remotest corners,
amongst formaldehyde-filled jars and stuffed animal specimens...
7 days, 6 murders. All the victims are brilliant scientists. The French police investigate to no avail. The killer’s modus
operandi eventually reveals that he is determined to mock every postulate of Darwin’s theory.
With the help of the Museum's plucky librarian, Léopoldine, Peter and Marcello set out to uncover the truth and to put a
stop to the barbaric acts terrifying the institution.
Film and foreign rights
Film rights available.
Translated and published in German, Dutch, Greek, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese and Russian.
Find out more
More than 100,000 copies sold in France; more than 40,000 copies sold on Germany.
Full text and press reviews available in the above- mentioned languages.
The only novel mentioned in the French National Research Center’s online bibliography on evolution.
DRAMA - POLITICAL
CANCER WARD
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Setting
A hospital in USSR (Soviet Uzbekistan) in
1955
Main characters
Oleg Filimonovitch Kostoglotov, 50’s, male
The story of a small group of people in the cancer ward of a provincial Soviet hospital in 1955, two years after
Stalin's death.
Admitted to a Soviet hospital somewhere in the USSR, Oleg Kostoglotov has been undergoing cancer treatments for
several months. Through exchanges with both his fellow patients and attending physicians, he has come to better
understand both who he is and what the future holds. After years in prison camps and exile, Oleg is surprised to discover
he still has the capacity to love. He also learns that even the strongest of men can be brought down by disease—and the
overwhelming cruelty of the Soviet system.
Who are these cancer-ridden patients? Exiles, an ex-prisoner, a concentration camp guard, and a secret police bureaucrat
whose denunciations have sent dozens of others to prison.
Film and foreign rights
Film rights available.
Translated and published in English, Spanish, Hungarian, Estonian, Czech, Lithuanian, Danish, Romanian, Chinese,
Finnish, Polish, Korean and Albanian.
Find out more
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.
Full text and press reviews available in the above- mentioned languages.
DRAMEDY
MY ILLUSIONS OUT THE WINDOW
Sacha Sperling
Setting
Contemporary Paris (or any other city)
Main characters
Sacha, teenager, male
Augustin, teenager, male
Like in a Larry Clark’s movie
“I liked the way Augustin looked at the stars, as if he could see what lay beyond. At school, me and my friends are bored.
In life too. There is nothing for us to undertake, nothing to achieve. We come and go as we please, have all the money we
need. We drink and take drugs, and no one cares. Fifteen-year-old girls playact at being liberated. Yet we feel imprisoned
all the same. As for me, I like to watch. To take note. One day I'll write it all down.”
Two 14-year old kids are looking for thrills in a Paris of the privileged. Party after party, from apartment overlooking the
Seine to luxury hotel suite, they drink, smoke, screw and shoot up, all at the same time more often than not. They only
attend school when they feel like it and are daunted by nothing. In today's world, anyhow, who really cares? It's no big
deal. The young in every era, after all, are always haunted by the same sense of dread: they want to believe themselves
eternal, when deep down they know that youth, like life, is fleeting.
Film and foreign rights
Film rights available.
Translated and published in German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Vietnamese, Czech, Chinese.
Find out more
Full text and press reviews available in all above-mentioned languages.