Screen Daily ( Melany Goodfellow )

Cannes: Wild Bunch adds  Emmanuelle Bercot

Wild Bunch is to kick off sales on Emmanuelle Bercot’s upcoming drug scandal tale 

150 Milligrams at the Cannes Marché next week.

Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen has signed to star as a lung specialist who discovers a link between a series of mysterious deaths and a state-approved drug.

The film is inspired by France’s real-life health scandal revolving around the diabetes drug Mediator, which is estimated to have caused the deaths of around 2,000 people before it was withdrawn from pharmacies in 2009.  

Bercot and co-writer Séverine Bosschem’s screenplay is based on the book Médiator 150MG: Combien de Morts? by Irène Frachon, a pulmonologist who was one of the first medical professionals to spot the link and suggested there had been a cover-up.

“It’s not a direct adaptation but rather inspired by the affair… it’s a sort Erin Brockovich à la francaise involving a woman who single-handedly takes on the drugs companies and medical establishment in the face of attempts to discredit her,” said Wild Bunch co-chief Vincent Maraval.

It promises to be a high-profile Cannes for Bercot who will ascend the steps of the Palais du Cinéma as the director of the opening film Standing Tall as well as the co-star of Maiwenn’s Palme d’Or contender Mon roi opposite Vincent Cassel.

Wild Bunch previously sold Bercot’s debut feature Backstage, starring Isild le Besco as a young fan obsessed with a popular singer played by Emmanuelle Seigner.

Like Backstage, Bercot’s latest film 150 Milligrams is produced by Carole Scotta and Caroline Benjo of Paris-based Haut et Court.