12/09/2003 - The director is making a modern adpatation of the classic tale by Charles Dickens, 'Oliver Twist'. Robert Benmussa and Alain Sarde have already confirmed their involvement in the project

One of the great classics of English Literature, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens is about to be turned into a film. It’s the new project of Roman Polanski and it will be his 16th feature length movie. The announcement was made during the festival of American cinema at Deauville. The new film appears to involve a large proportion of the crew who worked on the Oscar winning The Pianist [+see also:
trailer
film profile], including the screenwriter Ronald Harwood and the French producers Robert Benmussa and Alain Sarde.

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Oliver Twist was written in 1838 and the work has already been an inspiration for many filmmakers, including David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge over the River Kwai), whose version starred Alec Guinness and was presented at the Venice Film Festival and nominated for the Bafta Film Awards in 1949.
Roman Polanski will be using an entirely British cast to tell the story of the orphan who ran away from the workhouse to become part of a band of child pickpockets. It appears that the director has chosen to adapt this classic tale following the request of his two sons by his current wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, as well as seeing it as an opportunity to once again bring Oliver Twist back to the attention of today’s youngsters. In fact, the world painted by Dickens, with its combination of irony and cruelty, seems to be perfectly in tune with the spirit of the director, who will be making his comeback to the big screen after the fiasco of his film Pirates in 1986.

The producers Robert Benmussa and Alain Sarde have already confirmed their involvement in the project. It is Benmussa’s second time working with Polanski after the The Pianist, while Alain Sarde and his company Les Films Alain Sarde, is following on from his collaboration with the director after The Tenant in 1976 and Bitter Moon in 1992, without counting the collaboration with StudioCanal in the director’s last four films.
Filming on Oliver Twist is due to start in Europe next summer.

(Translated from French)