Cannes Winner ‘A Poet’ Getting US Remake With Director Nathan Silver

EXCLUSIVE: Cannes 2025 Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner A Poet, by Colombian filmmaker Simon Mesa Soto, is the inspiration for a new U.S. movie from Elle producer Saïd Ben Saïd and Between The Temples director Nathan Silver.

The English-language version of the critical hit will be set in upstate New York from a screenplay by Nathan Silver and Chris Mason Wells, the writing duo behind Sundance title Between The Temples.

Filming is being lined up for later this fall on the project, which is being produced by SBS Productions and has SBS International selling worldwide. Discussions will begin in Cannes this week. Casting is in process.

Silver’s Sundance ’24 title Between The Temples starred Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane and was picked up by Sony Classics.

Leading Tunisian-French film producer Ben Saïd, who acquired the remake rights to A Poet, is a Cannes habitué and is back at the festival this year with Ira Sachs’ Competition drama The Man I Love, starring Rami Malek, and Directors’ Fortnight movie Diary of a Chambermaid by Radu Jude.

Mesa Soto’s absurdist dramedy A Poet (Una Poeta) explores the life of a struggling, middle-aged poet whose life gets a shot in the arm when he starts to cultivate the creative talent of a teenage girl.

Silver told Deadline: “When I was a teenager, I fell in love with poetry, the work of Rimbaud and Nerval, and set about learning French so I could read their poems in the original language. I even went so far as to study in France at the age of 16, thinking I’d be entering a land of fellow poets, but instead found a bunch of teenagers who mostly cared about getting stoned and making out.”

He continued: “As one quixotic journey ended there, another began: I would become a filmmaker. And now multiple decades into that so-called career, I can relate all too well to a story of struggling to achieve artistic recognition, financial stability, and finding poetry in everyday life. After watching A Poet, I could immediately picture an American version of the film, transposing this character’s plight to a land that cares even less for poetry than Colombia.”

Co-writer Mason Wells added: “Our idea is to make something new that would still retain the furiously funny, upsetting, and moving spirit of the original. A kind of American cover version — in a new language and sound but with the same infectious melody.”