26/05/2025 - The film, said to be an anti-imperialistic black comedy, will star Aimee Lou Wood, Johnny Flynn and Vicky Krieps, and will be shot entirely in Poland

Directors Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert (© No-Mad Films)

UPDATE 26 May 2025: Joining Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn in the cast of The Idiot(s) are Vicky Krieps, the award-winning Luxembourgish actress known for Corsage, Phantom Thread and Hold Me Tight, who received the Best Performance Award in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and a European Film Award for Corsage; Christian Friedel, a German actor recognised for his work in The Zone of Interest, The White Ribbon and White Lotus, and twice-nominated for Best Actor at both the European and German Film Awards; Barbara Marten, a UK actress whose credits include Dune: The Prophecy and Oranges and Sunshine; and Rainer Bock, a German thesp and three-time German Film Award nominee, known for The Mover, Das Boot and The White Ribbon.

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“It’s not a traditional approach to Fiodor Dostoyevsky. The film is highly contemporary and refers very much to what is happening currently in the world. It’s a timely story, to a certain extent about the fact that, without his wife, Dostoyevsky wouldn’t have been who he became,” Małgorzata Szumowska, the co-director and co-writer of The Idiot(s), tells Cineuropa exclusively. She adds that the new film will be a black comedy – and an anti-imperialistic one, too. She explains that the script, which she wrote with Michał Englert, with help from Kasper Bajon and Brid Arstein, used Anna Dostoevskaya’s diaries as a principal source. The story, as Variety first revealed, will revolve around Fiodor and Anna’s honeymoon and the early years of their marriage, a period when the famous novel The Idiots was conceived. Andrew D Kaufman’s book The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky is an additional literary source for the script.

Shooting will start on 16 June in Poland, with all locations scouted inside the country. The cast revealed so far includes Aimee Lou Wood (White Lotus, Sex Education) and Johnny Flynn (Ripley, One Life). Szumowska also tells Cineuropa that more cast members will be announced soon, presumably during the Cannes Film Festival. Englert, who is one of Poland’s top cinematographers and also works on international projects, will lens the movie and will co-direct with Szumowska for the third time, after All Inclusive and Woman of...

Most of the duo’s previous projects – on which Englert served as DoP, co-writer or additional director – saw them borrowing elements of black comedy. This was indeed the case for Body and Mug, which both earned Szumowska Silver Bears, and for Never Gonna Snow Again, which opened at Venice. Their films, shot and written in Polish, take a critical look at Polish society, the oddities that constitute people’s daily lives and the way they perceive the world. Their recent effort Woman of… premiered in Venice’s main competition in 2023.

Szumowska has also already worked on international projects, including Elles, with an international cast led by Juliette Binoche; The Other Lamb, with Raffey Cassidy in the main role; and Infinite Storm, which was toplined by Hollywood star Naomi Watts. These movies have a more serious and darker tone compared to Szumowska’s Polish works, and revolve around female characters facing different, yet always significant, forms of adversity.

The Idiot(s) is being produced by French-US outfit Hype Studios (Persian Lessons, The Disappearance of Josef Mengele) and the UK’s Gold Rush Pictures (Club Zero, Ruben Östlund’s upcoming The Entertainment System Is Down). The Match Factory is kicking its world sales at Cannes' Marché du Film (see the news).