PRODUCTION / FUNDING Germany / Poland
Magnus von Horn teams up with Jeremy Strong for The Passenger
by Ola Salwa
- The historical escape thriller is the helmer’s English-language debut and is an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
Polish-Swedish filmmaker Magnus von Horn (the Oscar-nominated The Girl with the Needle, Sweat) is readying The Passenger, his fourth feature and his first in English. As first reported by Variety, the movie is a historical escape thriller and an adaptation of the eponymous 1938 novel by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, which received positive reviews for portraying the atmosphere of antisemitic persecution in Nazi Germany in the wake of World War II. The story revolves around established businessman Otto Silbermann, who must flee Berlin after the Night of Broken Glass pogroms.
US thesp Jeremy Strong (Succession, The Apprentice) will play the lead, while the rest of the cast is being kept under wraps. The shoot, which will take place in Poland and Germany, is planned for Q1 2027, as the film’s Polish producer, Mariusz Włodarski, informed Cineuropa. Włodarski has collaborated with von Horn since his student films.
The Passenger is being produced by Jan Krueger and Rosh Khodabakhsh through their German-based outfit Port-au-Prince and by Włodarski’s Lava Films.
“It’s worth noting that the project came to us from Jan and Rosh. They felt that the kind of cinema Magnus makes is close to how they envisioned the film. We loved the book and wanted the script to feel contemporary while remaining rooted in the events of November 1938 and Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass. Jeremy loved the version we drafted and agreed to embark on this journey with us,” Włodarski says. “It’s a story about a man who suddenly feels unwanted in his own society. It resonates with what is happening today – for instance, in the United States, with the fear of ICE interventions, and in other countries, where a citizen can suddenly become a refugee simply for belonging to a minority. What we also found striking is that Boschwitz wrote this book before World War II. That is why the story feels so alarming now – we don’t know what the next five years will bring, and that uncertainty is something we all carry with us.”
It also seems that The Passenger will be another project in which von Horn reflects on the nature of evil – the leitmotif of all of his previous films. The Polish contingent involved in the project is still being negotiated, but the team’s aim is to get regular collaborators on board. Włodarski confirms that he will apply for a grant from the Polish Film Institute in its upcoming session. US-based FilmNation is co-financing the movie and will launch sales at the imminent Marché du Film in Cannes.
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