The Match Factory has come on board as sales agent for “The Idiots,” the new feature by Polish filmmakers Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert.
The film stars “White Lotus” actor Aimee Lou Wood, a BAFTA winner for best female performance in a comedy program for “Sex Education,” alongside Johnny Flynn (“Ripley,” “One Life,” “Beast”), nominated for the best supporting actor at the Critics Choice Award for his role in “Genius.”
The film’s principal photography is set to start next month.
The story is based on the novel “The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky” by Andrew D. Kaufman, published in 2021, which follows the lives of the writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and his wife Anna during a period that inspired him to write “The Idiot” – at the time a commercial flop, but today, considered one of the greatest novels in the history of literature.
The film follows Fyedya and Anna as they travel to Europe for their honeymoon and end up staying in a health resort in Switzerland, only to return to Russia after four years.
Fyedya can’t shake his roulette habit and keeps losing their money. His wife accepts this fate since he keeps assuring her that it’s all for inspiration and soon he shall write his to-be masterpiece, “The Idiot.”
Szumowska co-wrote the film with Kasper Bajon, and Englert will take on the cinematography. Szumowska has won the Silver Bear at the Berlinale twice for her films “Mug” (2018) and “Body” (2015). She won the Locarno Special Jury Prize for “33 Scenes From Life” (2018) and was nominated twice for the European Discovery Award for “Szczesliwy czlowiek” (2001) and “Stranger” (2005) and for best European director for “Body” (2015) at the European Film Awards.
Co-directing with Englert has proven successful in the past: their previous films “Woman of…” (2023) and “Never Gonna Snow Again” (2020) both screened in Venice competition. Englert is a winner of Sundance’s cinematography award for “Lasting” (2023), a five-time nominee for best cinematography at the Polish Film Awards and a six-time nominee of the Camerimage Award.
The film is produced by Hype Studios and Gold Rush Pictures. Hype Studios is a Paris- and Los Angeles-based production company, known for “Persian Lessons” (2020) and the Palme d’Or nominee “Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie” (2024). Gold Rush Pictures is an international production company whose “Club Zero” (2023) was a Palme d’Or nominee in the 2023 Cannes competition, and whose latest film “The Light” (2025) opened this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The producers are Ilya Stewart and Vladimir Zemtsov.
Wood is represented by Independent Talent in the U.K. and CAA in the U.S. and Flynn is represented by United Agents in the U.K. and CAA in the U.S. Szumowska is represented by CAA.
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