French Tech Entrepreneur Adrien Nussenbaum Launches Palatio Films With Daniel Auteuil’s Cannes Movie ‘When Night Falls’
Adrien Nussenbaum, the French tech entrepreneur who co-founded e-commerce powerhouse Mirakl, is stepping into the movie business with the launch of Palatio Films, a new production company making its Cannes debut with Daniel Auteuil’s WWII drama “When Night Falls.”Bowing at Cannes Premiere, the film marks a major career pivot for Nussenbaum, who recently stepped back from his operational role at Mirakl to focus on producing. Already a backer of Dimitri Rassam’s Yapluka banner, Nussenbaum is now aiming to build a slate of prestige auteur and mainstream films through Palatio Films.The tech company he previously co-founded, Mirakl, was recently valued at more than $3.5 billion and has become France’s biggest tech success stories. But cinema remained a lifelong obsession for Nussenbaum.“As a child, I had posters of Paul Newman and Robert Redford on my bedroom walls,” he says. “I always wanted to work in film.” That dream took shape through “La Troisième Nuit,” which Nussenbaum originated after stumbling upon the little-known story of Jewish children who were rescued during a roundup in Vénissieux, France. The film is set in August 1942, during the Vichy regime’s roundup of foreign Jews. Antoine Reinartz plays a young civil servant tasked with sorting the fate of arrested Jews, while Auteuil stars as Abbé Alexandre Glasberg, the humanitarian priest fighting to save them. Luàna Bajrami and Grégory Gadebois also star.
Nussenbaum spent years developing the project before attaching producer Frédéric Jouve of Les Films Velvet and eventually Auteuil, who immediately committed to direct and star after reading the screenplay.Produced on a budget of just under €6 million, the film arrives at Cannes during a year unusually packed with WWII-set stories, alongside László Nemes’ “Moulin,” Emmanuel Marre’s “A Man of His Time” and Antonin Baudry’s “De Gaulle.” Yet Nussenbaum believes “When Night Falls” distinguishes itself through its intimate focus on French bureaucracy, moral compromise and acts of resistance carried out without weapons. “It’s really about French people deciding whether or not to obey,” he says.With Palacio Films now fully launched, Nussenbaum is developing several projects spanning memory, mental health and identity. Among them are “Les Souvenirs Inachevés,” about a morally adrift real estate executive rediscovering meaning in a pastoral community in southern France, and “Les Accords Retrouvés,” a father-daughter road movie centered on teenage mental health.
Nussenbaum spent years developing the project before attaching producer Frédéric Jouve of Les Films Velvet and eventually Auteuil, who immediately committed to direct and star after reading the screenplay.Produced on a budget of just under €6 million, the film arrives at Cannes during a year unusually packed with WWII-set stories, alongside László Nemes’ “Moulin,” Emmanuel Marre’s “A Man of His Time” and Antonin Baudry’s “De Gaulle.” Yet Nussenbaum believes “When Night Falls” distinguishes itself through its intimate focus on French bureaucracy, moral compromise and acts of resistance carried out without weapons. “It’s really about French people deciding whether or not to obey,” he says.With Palacio Films now fully launched, Nussenbaum is developing several projects spanning memory, mental health and identity. Among them are “Les Souvenirs Inachevés,” about a morally adrift real estate executive rediscovering meaning in a pastoral community in southern France, and “Les Accords Retrouvés,” a father-daughter road movie centered on teenage mental health.