Sandra Hüller is set to play German writer and artist Wolfgang Herrndorf in Work and Structure, the new feature by German filmmaker Maria Schrader. The project is based on Herrndorf’s autobiographical writings, which chronicled the final years of his life following his diagnosis of a terminal brain tumour in 2010.

Production is due to begin in early 2027. Germany’s Komplizen Film is producing, with StudioCanal, German broadcaster ZDF and France’s Haut et Court on board as co-producers. StudioCanal will also oversee worldwide sales and release the film theatrically in Germany, France and Italy in 2028.

Published posthumously by Rowohlt Berlin Verlag in 2013, Work and Structure grew out of the online diary that Herrndorf began after learning of his illness. The resulting book became a literary success in Germany and a major work of contemporary German literature.

The pic will follow Herrndorf as he moves between hospital stays, periods of intense writing, and time spent with friends and his partner, while confronting the knowledge of his approaching death. Alongside his illness, he continues working on several literary projects and documenting the shifting emotional states prompted by his condition.

Hüller, whose recent credits include Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest and Project Hail Mary, described encountering Herrndorf through the project as “a great honour and a profound challenge”, highlighting the mixture of unease, surprise and consolation she found in his writing.

Schrader is penning the screenplay together with Jan Schomburg. The filmmaker, whose credits include I’m Your Man, She Said, Unorthodox and Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe, described Herrndorf’s text as an intimate record of a man using words to resist his own disappearance. Herrndorf was also the author of the bestselling novel Tschick (Why We Took the Car), which was previously adapted for the big screen by Fatih Akin as Goodbye Berlin.

Janine Jackowski is producing for Komplizen Film. The project is supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, the German Federal Government’s jury-based cultural film-funding programme, the German Federal Film Board (FFA) through the Franco-German Minitraité, and Creative Europe – MEDIA.