The movie will be produced by Komplizen Film (“Sentimental Value”) and co-produced by Studiocanal (“Extrawurst”), ZDF and France’s Haut et Court (“The Night of the 12th”), with production set to begin in early 2027.
Studiocanal will handle worldwide sales and release the film in Germany, France and Italy in 2028.
Hüller, whose credits include “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Zone of Interest” and “Project Hail Mary,” will portray Herrndorf, a man who began documenting his life after being diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor in 2010.
The film will follow Herrndorf through the final years of his life as he confronts his illness while continuing to write and remain immersed in friendships, love and creative work. Moving between hospital stays, bursts of creative energy and intimate moments with friends and his partner, he chronicles an emotional landscape spanning panic and serenity, joy and insomnia, hope and despair, while continuing to work on multiple literary projects and searching for what truly matters.
“Ever since my first encounter with Wolfgang Herrndorf’s work, I have been unable to let go of his writing. His texts are at once surprising, unsettling, and comforting,” said Hüller said. “To encounter him as a person through this film: at a moment when his life changed abruptly, seemed on the verge of falling apart, and when he was simultaneously discovering his voice as a writer before it was tragically silenced, is both a great honour and a profound challenge for me,” she continued.
Published posthumously by Rowohlt Berlin Verlag in 2013, “Work and Structure” grew out of the online journal Herrndorf started following his diagnosis. The diary became a literary phenomenon in Germany and is considered one of the defining works of contemporary German literature.
Studiocanal’s Hooman Afshari and Lutz Rippe said the project “brings together everything that defines great cinema: a singular voice, a deeply personal story and creative talent of the highest international standing.”
The project is backed by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Film- and Media Foundation NRW, the Federal Government’s jury-based cultural film funding program, the German Federal Film Board FFA through the Minitraité and Creative Europe MEDIA Slate Development.
