“Corsage” and “Phantom Thread” actor Vicky Krieps and “The Zone of Interest” and “White Lotus” star Christian Friedel have joined Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn in the cast of “The Idiots.”
Krieps won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard best performance award and the European Film Award for “Corsage” in 2022. Friedel is a two-time nominee for best actor at both the European and German film awards.
Other actors joining the cast are Barbara Marten (“Dune: The Prophecy,” “Oranges and Sunshine”) and three-time German Film Award nominee Rainer Bock (“Atlas,” “Das Boot,” “The White Ribbon”).
The film is to be directed by Polish filmmakers Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert, and is co-written by Szumowska and Englert together with Kasper Bajon and Bríd Arnstein. Englert will also serve as cinematographer. International sales are being handled by the Match Factory.
The story is based on the novel “The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky” by Andrew D. Kaufman, published in 2021, which follows the lives of the writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and his wife Anna during a period that inspired him to write “The Idiot” – at the time a commercial flop, but today, considered one of the greatest novels in the history of literature.
Anna and Fiedya’s honeymoon trip to Baden turns into an unexpected, passionate journey where reality blends with imagination, East meets West, and gambling leads to ruin. An intimate portrait of the explosive relationship between the writer and his courageous wife, as they struggle with obstacles and pursue their vision of creating a soon-to-be masterpiece: “The Idiot.”
Szumowska is a two-time Silver Bear winner at the Berlinale for “Mug” (2018) and “Body” (2015), and won the Locarno Special Jury Prize for “33 Scenes From Life” (2008). She has also been nominated for the European Discovery Award for “Szczęśliwy człowiek” (2001) and “Stranger “(2005), and for best European director for “Body” at the European Film Awards.
Szumowska and Englert worked as co-directors on “Woman Of…” (2023) and “Never Gonna Snow Again” (2020), which both premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival. Englert is also a recipient of the Sundance cinematography award for “Lasting” (2013), a five-time Polish Film Awards nominee for best cinematography, and a six-time nominee at the prestigious cinematography festival Camerimage.
Arnstein is a BAFTA-nominated writer, working across both film and television. Since graduating from the National Film and Television School in 2020, she has developed original TV projects with companies including DNA, FX, Element Pictures, House Productions, FilmNation and Ray Pictures. Bajon is a writer and assistant director, known for “Via Carpatia” (2018), “Open Your Eyes” (2021) and “Project UFO” (2025).
The film is produced by Hype Studios and Gold Rush Pictures. Hype Studios is a Paris- and Los Angeles-based production company, known for “Persian Lessons” (2020) and the Palme d’Or nominee “Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie” (2024). Gold Rush Pictures is an international production company whose “Club Zero” (2023) was a Palme d’Or nominee in the 2023 Cannes competition, and whose latest film “The Light” (2025) opened this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The producers are Ilya Stewart and Vladimir Zemtsov.
