Mia Hansen-Løve prepares “If Love Should Die”, Mary Wollstonecraft biopic

Pascal Chantier

The renowned French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve (One fine morning) has announced her next film: If love should diea biography of the 18th-century English writer, philosopher and women’s rights activist, Mary Wollstonecraft.

Filming of the project is planned for 2025 in the UK, France, Scandinavia and Portugal. The plot is as follows: On the eve of the French Revolution, an impoverished young English woman makes the courageous decision to shape her life according to the ideals of the Enlightenment.

Wollstonecraft is best known for her work A defense of women’s rightspublished in 1792, in which she argued that women were not inherently inferior to men, even if this seemed so in her time because they did not have equal access to education. Wollstonecraft believed that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and envisioned a social order based on reason. Her ideas and writings laid the foundation for the feminist movement and made her a pioneering figure in the fight for gender equality. Notably, Wollstonecraft was also the mother of Frankenstein Author Mary Shelley.

If love should die is produced by Mubi, Georgie Paget and Thembisa Cochrane for Caspian Films, David Thion and Philippe Martin for Les Films Pelléas, Mer Film, Lorenzo Mieli for Our Films and Arte France Cinéma. Mubi and Arte France Cinéma are financing the production, while The Match Factory is handling worldwide distribution.

Les Films Pelléas comes to the project having worked with Hansen-Løve five times previously. Mubi co-produced and distributed her most recent film. One fine morningstarring Léa Seydoux, in several territories, including the UK, and distributed her romantic dramedy Bergman Islandwith Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth, Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie, in Great Britain and Ireland.

In a statement about her new film, Hansen-Løve said: “My aim is to capture this crucial era and the life of a woman that cinema has never looked at before with as much clarity and truth as possible. In England, Mary Wollstonecraft is an icon, in France she is unknown. That suits me: making a film about a character who is too predictable or too famous has never interested me. I am attracted to characters who are on a quest and have no certainties. The souls of artists, no doubt, but I am inspired by the most fragile and vulnerable among them.”

A spokesperson for Mubi said the company was honored to be working with Mia again. As huge admirers of Mia’s work, this is the third film we have collaborated on with her and we look forward to bringing Mary Wollstonecraft’s extraordinary and groundbreaking life to the screen for the first time. If love should die.”

Getting out of the romantic drama One fine morningwhich premiered at the Quinzaine des Régislatifs in Cannes and was sold to over 70 countries, Hansen-Løve previously directed Bergman Islandwhich also premiered in Cannes. Other previous films by the renowned French filmmaker are Maya, Things to come, Eden, Goodbye, first love, Father of my childrenAnd Everything is forgiven. She is represented in France by Gersh and Intertalent.