Greenwich Entertainment Acquires U.S. Rights To Philippe Le Guay’s ‘Man In The Basement’ With François Cluzet and Bérénice Bejo

Greenwich Entertainment has taken U.S. distribution rights to Man in the Basement directed by Philippe Le Guay (The Women on the 6th Floor) and starring François Cluzet (The Intouchables), Jérémie Renier (Summer Hours), and Bérénice Bejo (The Artist). Last month, the film won the top prize at the U.K. Jewish Film Festival.

Greenwich has set a U.S. theatrical release for January 27, timed to National Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 28.

Based on a true story of friends of co-writer and director Le Guay, a happily married Parisian couple (Renier and Bejo) sell a basement storage area in their apartment building to a seemingly ordinary man (Cluzet) to keep his archives. 

It soon becomes apparent that this man has taken up permanent residence in the basement, while he is revealed to be a notorious Holocaust denier and [fired] former history teacher. The couple desperately try to cancel the sale to no avail then begin a protracted legal action to evict. In the meantime, the basement dweller becomes an insidious presence in the building, undermining the couple’s marriage and insinuating himself with their naive teenage daughter.

Part thriller and part character study of reasonable people confronted with unreason, the film examines the ever present, subterranean threat civilization faces from bigoted conspiracy theories and historical denialism.

Man in the Basement (L’Homme de la cave) was produced by Anne-Dominique Toussaint (Capernaum).  Greenwich’s Edward Arentz negotiated the acquisition with Nicolas Brigaud-Robert from Paris-based Playtime on behalf of the filmmakers.