Frank & Louis, the upcoming drama from director Petra Volpe, secured multiple key European pre-sales as production kicks off.
Constantin Film picked up the film for Germany and Austria, Filmcoopi has acquired rights for Switzerland, and September Film will handle release in the Benelux region.
Kingsley Ben-Adir (Bob Marley: One Love, Barbie) and Rob Morgan (Mudbound, Don’t Look Up) star in the English-language debut from Swiss-Italian director Petra Volpe, whose recent feature Late Shift drew acclaim at this year’s Berlinale and became a local box office success in German-speaking Europe. TrustNordisk is handling international sales.
Set within the walls of a U.S. prison, Frank & Louis follows Frank (Ben-Adir), a man serving a life sentence who takes on a caretaking role for aging inmates suffering from memory loss. The BAFTA-nominated British actor has drawn attention from recent turns as Bob Marley in Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Bob Marley: One Love and Malcolm X in Regina King’s One Night in Miami. Morgan, known for The Last Black Man in San Francisco and Bull, stars as Louis, a fellow inmate living with memory decline.
What begins as a calculated attempt to improve his parole prospects evolves into a deeply personal connection with another prisoner, reframing the protagonist’s understanding of dignity, responsibility, and redemption.
The ensemble also includes Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), Rosalind Eleazar (Slow Horses), and Grammy-winning artist René Pérez Joglar, a.k.a. Residente, who recently earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his performance in In the Summers.
Frank & Louis was co-written by Volpe and Esther Bernstorff (4 Kings), and produced by Reto Schaerli and Lukas Hobi for Zodiac Pictures, with Georgie Paget and Thembisa Cochrane of Caspian Films serving as co-producers. It is supported by Swiss public broadcaster SRF and SRG SSR, along with backing from national and regional film funds.
