Claire Denis to Direct Cannibal Crime Drama ‘The Soap Maker’

Claire Denis is in prep mode for a film that’ll bring her back to the genre roots of 2001’s “Trouble Every Day.”

Denis is set to direct the cannibal crime thriller “The Soap Maker,” an updated remake of Italian director Mauro Bolognini’s 1977 movie “Gran Bollito,” which starred Shelley Winters as a serial killer who cooked the bodies of her victims into soap, cake, and cookies (via Variety).

Bolognini’s film was itself based on real-life serial killer Leonarda Cianciulli. Producers have acquired the rights to both the original film and Cianciulli’s diaries, which she “wrote in the psychiatric prison where she spent the rest of her life after confessing her crimes.”

Denis’ project has found its producers, it will be her next film, but most intriguingly, producers are pitching the film as being in the same vein as “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Se7en,” and… “Get Out.”

A few years back, Denis, 79, had mentioned that her Cannes-premiered “Stars at Noon” could be her final film amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, that plan did not work out. She premiered “The Fence” last year, and now has “The Soap Maker.”

Denis is arguably France’s most globally acclaimed living female director. Her notable works include “Chocolat,” “35 Shots of Rum,” “Beau Travail,” “The Intruder,” and “White Material.”