Michael Haneke’s next project will be a dystopian… | Little White Lies

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Michael Haneke’s next project will be a dystopi­an tele­vi­sion show

30 Jan 2018

Words by Hannah Strong

Elderly man with a grey beard wearing a black jacket, standing indoors with a framed painting visible in the background.
Elderly man with a grey beard wearing a black jacket, standing indoors with a framed painting visible in the background.
The Aus­tri­an mas­ter is set to make his small screen debut with a 10-part Eng­lish-lan­guage drama.

Good news for fans of Michael Haneke’s acer­bic wit – the Aus­tri­an direc­tor is turn­ing his hand to a tele­vi­sion series for the first time. His fol­low-up project to 2017’s Hap­py End will be a 10-part Eng­lish-lan­guage tele­vi­sion series, tak­ing place in a dystopi­an vision of the future. Com­ment­ing on his deci­sion, Haneke said: ​“After 10 TV-movies and 12 films, I want­ed to tell a longer sto­ry for once.”

Enti­tled Kelvin’s Book, the dra­ma will focus on a group of young peo­ple aboard a flight that’s forced to make an emer­gency land­ing, who are then con­front­ed with the real­i­ty of their home coun­try for the first time. It sounds suit­ably mys­te­ri­ous, though, with Haneke at the helm, there’s a strong like­li­hood of soci­etal com­men­tary and uncom­fort­able moments that will make you squirm in your seat.

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Haneke is the lat­est direc­tor to make the move to the small screen, fol­low­ing the likes of Pao­lo Sor­renti­no (The Young Pope), David Finch­er (Mind­hunter) and Jean-Marc Val­lée (Big Lit­tle Lies). This trend shows no signs of slow­ing down, with Steven Soder­bergh, Nico­las Wind­ing-Refn and the Coen Broth­ers all releas­ing TV projects in 2018. Haneke start­ed his career in cre­at­ing tele­vi­sion movies, but Kelvin’s Book will be his first series, and sec­ond Eng­lish-lan­guage project after his 2007 shot-for-shot remake of Fun­ny Games.

No word on if Haneke’s got roles for Isabelle Hup­pert and Jean-Louis Trintig­nant yet though – we can only hope.

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