Lea Seydoux, the French star of Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, will play the lead in Party of Fools, a French period drama-thriller, to be directed by Arnaud des Pallières.

The female-centric film is produced by two of France’s biggest producers, Philippe Rousselet and Jonathan Blumental, at the Paris-based company Prelude. The pair previously teamed for Michel Hazanavicius’s The Lost Prince with Omar Sy.

Party of Fools, which is the first high-profile, big-budget project to be announced since the start of the coronavirus crisis, is expected to begin shooting at the end of 2020 or early 2021.

Written by Arnaud des Pallières and Christelle Berthevas, the film is set during the Paris Carnival in 1893 and is based on true historical events and characters. It takes place at the Pitié Salpétrière mental institution for women, which is rendered the epicenter of an elaborate ball where politicians, artists and socialites all come together to partake in a night of festivities.

Seydoux will star as Fanni, one of 150 female patients who have been selected from among 4,500 to take part in the ball due to their good behavior and looks. However, as the night unfolds, Fanni has just one goal in mind — to find her mother among the crowd and escape.

Seydoux, meanwhile, will next be seen in the upcoming James Bond feature, No Time To Die, directed by Cary Fukunaga, as well as Ildikò Enyedi’s The Story of My Wife.