Media Innovation Technology Series: Christine Leunens, International Best-selling Author

PCU is honoured to have Christine Leunens as a guest lecturer. Christine has emerged as a great storyteller with two of her four novels having been adapted to film by leading Hollywood players. Taika Waititi, Director of Academy-award-winning film Jojo Rabbit and Mimi Polk Gitlin, the producer of Academy Award-winning film Thelma & Louise.

This FREE public event will by MC’d by Maia Horniak from the School of Media and IT who will lead a conversation with Christine where they will discuss Christine’s creative processes as a writer, her experience having her novels translated into film and recent work as a screenwriter. She will also share her experiences collaborating with Taika Waititi and thoughts on the film Jojo Rabbit as well as her more recent experiences working with International Producers and Directors.

Christine’s Bio

Christine was born in Hartford, Connecticut to an Italian mother and a Belgian father and currently lives in New Zealand. As a teenager she moved to Paris, where she had a close relationship with her grand-father, Guillaume Leunens, the Flemish painter and sculptor. She funded her study and early writing by modelling in Europe, becoming the face of Givenchy, Paco Rabanne, Nina Ricci, Pierre Balmain and Sonia Rykiel, acting in TV ads such as Mercedes Benz, Suzuki and House of Fraser.

She went on to earn a Master of Liberal Arts in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University in 2005, and a PhD at Victoria University of Wellington in 2012.

Her debut novel, Primordial Soup, published in the UK in 1999, was a critical success, receiving praise in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent, and Publishers Weekly. 

Caging Skies/Jojo Rabbit

Published in 2004, Caging Skies became an international bestseller and was nominated for the Prix Médicis in France in 2007. 

The book was adapted to stage and film. The play adaptation, written by Desirée Gezentzvey and directed by Andrew Foster, had its world premiere at the Circa Theatre, Wellington in 2017.

Taika Waititi’s film adaptation, Jojo Rabbit, filmed in Prague and the Czech Republic won the People’s Choice Award at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, was nominated in 2020 for two Golden Globes, six BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), and six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It won the WGA (Writers Guild of America) Award, the BAFTA Award as well as the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and ultimately was selected as one of WGA’s 101 greatest screenplays of the 21st Century.

Free Public Screening on 19th April

Attendees are also invited to to see the film Jojo Rabbit in the Cinema Hall of the Municipal Libary at Mariánské nám. 1, Prague 1 (main cinema hall in basement) the following evening at 7pm on 19th April. This is a unique opportunity to watch the film on the big screen. More details here.

Prague Writers Residency

Christine is currently undertaking her first residency with the UNESCO-funded Prague City of Literature programme and aims to produce a new novel, epic in scope that will focus on the struggles of a family of four generations who are torn apart over opposing political beliefs.

Interviews with Christine

https://www.christineleunens.com/interviews.html 

Published Works

In Amber’s Wake. Bateman Books, 2022
A Can of Sunshine. RSVP – Eunoia Publishing Group, 2013
Caging Skies. Random House, 2008
Primordial Soup. Dedalus Books, 1999