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EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Oscar winner Adrien Brody (The Brutalist) and Golden Globe winner Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) have been set to star in Brazilian filmmaker and Cannes habitué Karim Aïnouz’s (Firebrand) father-daughter story Last Dance.
Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen) will co-star and write original music for the film, and fresh off her Olivier-winning performance in Evita, Zegler will sing original music.
Emily Ziff Griffin wrote the screenplay based on her 2021 autobiographical New Yorker article “The Last Dance with My Dad.” The project is the first known movie role accepted by Brody since he won his second Best Actor Oscar for The Brutalist.
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In Last Dance, “celebrated Broadway composer Elliot (Brody) invites his daughter Emma (Zegler) on a gay cruise through the Caribbean in 1991 — a dazzling, liberating world of music, celebration and chosen family where Emma, the only straight woman on board, experiences an unexpected first love with a young crew member. But beneath the joy and abandon, the AIDS crisis casts an ever-deepening shadow. As Elliot retreats from the devastating reality of his illness, father and daughter are forced to confront the unspoken truths between them. In the fleeting time they have left together, can they rediscover each other before the music finally fades?”
Fifth Season and Oscar-nominated Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor’s (A Star Is Born) 51 Entertainment are producing. Griffin also executive produces. FilmNation Entertainment will launch international sales at the upcoming Cannes market. Fifth Season and CAA Media Finance Group are handling domestic rights.
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“I am thrilled to bring to the screen such a unique and moving portrait of a time where hope and celebration allowed our queer community to overcome one of the worst crises of last century,” Aïnouz said. “When many were dying of AIDS, there was a sense of solidarity and fury that made us stronger. Last Dance is a universal and urgent tale where joy is taken up as resilience, where the dance floor becomes a pièce de résistance. It is an honor to collaborate with such exquisite talent in order to bring this movie to life in a time where, more than ever, we need fables of hope.”
Added Glen Basner, CEO FilmNation Entertainment: “Emily Ziff Griffin’s unfiltered remembrance of her father and her unconventional upbringing is powerful in both its’ crystal-clear specificity, and in its relatability to all children — in all types of families — who look back on seminal, life moments. Last Dance vividly recreates New York in the nineties; the outsized joy and sorrow of that period and also presents a universal and deeply moving father daughter story.”
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Aïnouz is repped by CAA, Lark and Granderson Des Rochers. Brody is repped by CAA and Kopeikin Law P.C. Zegler is repped by WME, The Initiative Group and Freundlich Law. Platt is repped by CAA, Untitled Entertainment, Immersive Management and Jackoway Austen. Griffin is repped by WME and Greenberg Glusker.
