Mathieu Amalric and Gina McKee also set to star.
French director Arnaud Desplechin (‘A Christmas Tale’) has tapped Benicio Del Toro (‘Savages,’ ‘Che’) to lead the true life drama ‘AKA Jimmy Picard,’ reports Deadline.
The film, which will also star Mathieu Amalric (‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’) and Gina McKee (‘The Borgias’), is adapted from Georges Devereux’s non-fiction book ‘Reality and Dream: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian’ and is the true story of a friendship between a Native American soldier and a French psychoanalyst.
Del Toro will play the title character, a Plains Indian member of the Blackfeet nation who returns from the WWII battlefield experiences various medical symptoms, none of which can be explained physically. He travels to the famed Winter Hospital in Topeka, Kansas, where he encounters ethno-psychiatrist Georges Devereux (Amalric). Through their sessions, the two men, foreign to themselves and to their country, become friends.”
Pascal Caucheteux of Why Not Productions (‘Rust And Bone’) will produce with Jennifer Roth (‘Black Swan’) serving as executive producer.