Croatian poster for Rosemary's Baby, poster from the collection of The Łódź Film Museum
The classic 1967 Ira Levin novel “Rosemary's Baby” has already made it to the screen previously as directed by polish film-maker Roman Polański, whose 1968 production is still considered a genre-defying horror film. Polański’s picture began the series of satanic horror blockbusters, inspiring the creators of such movies as The Omen, The Exorcist and Damien.
While Polański’s film was set in New York City, Agnieszka Holland’s remake of Rosemary’s Baby is being relocated to Paris. The story will mainly remain the same as the novel and the original film: a young married couple who move into a Paris apartment that has a haunted past. After getting pregnant, the wife becomes increasingly suspicious that both her husband and their neighbors will have ulterior motives when her child is born. NBC might seem like an odd host for such a miniseries, but it's part of a big push from the American network to get involved in the current drama boom in TV programming.
Agnieszka Holland however is not new to the TV genre. She is known for her distinct style in taking the Hollywood formula for success and applying it to topics from the Old Continent. Taking America by storm, Holland was previously nominated for an Emmy Award for her work directing the pilot episode of the HBO series Treme, which revisits New Orleans after Katrina. She was also honored with a lifetime achievement award at the 1999 Film Festival in Las Vegas. Regarding her Television work, the Polish director notes to Karen Kemmerle of the Tribeca Film Festival:
For me, television is just a medium. It isn’t radically different from film, though it has different stylistic possibilities and limitations, but it is also something new… With challenging materials from HBO, Showtime, and now, AMC, it was very natural for me to want to work on their projects…But I’m very particular… I like being able to explore the realities of people and places that are not like mine, like the inner city of Baltimore or New Orleans after Katrina.
Holland returned to Poland in 1971 after graduating from FAMU, the Prague film school in 1971. She is currently based in New York and lectures as the Brooklyn College, CUNY.
See previous posters for the film.
Edited by E.M., 11/12/2013