Joann Sfar to adapt Céline’s “Journey to the End of the Night” for the cinema

Several projects to adapt this novel have been initiated but none have ever come to fruition.

Cartoonist and filmmaker Joann Sfar is currently “at work” to bring the novel to the cinema Journey to the End of the Night by Céline, for which he acquired the adaptation rights from Gallimard, he told AFP on Monday, September 9.

Reached by telephone, the author of the comic strip (The Rabbi’s Cat, Klezmer…) and film director (Gainsbourg heroic life…) briefly confirmed that he was working on the first screen adaptation of the book by Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894-1961), information revealed by The World. “We are working but it is too early to say more”he said. Associated with Joann Sfar on this project, the screenwriter Thomas Bidegain also confirmed to AFP that he was at “beginning” of the adaptation of this novel, which follows the wanderings of a veteran of the First World War across several continents.

“It’s a bet”comments Thomas Bidegain, who won a César in 2010 for co-writing A prophet by Jacques Audiard. “Which is very complicated, he adds, It is the structure of the novel, its language, its main character but also the ghost of Céline”a writer criticized for his anti-Semitic writings and his collaboration with the Nazi occupiers during the Second World War.

Since the publication of the Journey In 1932, several filmmakers, including Abel Gance and Michel Audiard, attempted to adapt it for the big screen, but none of these projects came to fruition. According to The WorldJoann Sfar acquired the adaptation rights in December 2023 via the company The Magical Society By Joann Sfar, which he owns with a producer.

According to the daily, the rights were acquired from Gallimard with the agreement of the writer’s rights holders and for a secret amount. Contacted by AFP, the publishing house did not immediately respond. Lawyer François Gibault, one of Céline’s two rights holders, could not be reached by AFP.