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Teacher writes finale to Cannes in school hols
Olivia Cole24 Apr 2009
Goodbye Knole Park, hello the South of France. The Croisette is some distance from Sevenoaks, the Palais du Festival some way from the staff room and closing the Cannes film festival the kind of good fortune which screenwriters the world over dream about.
Chris Greenhalgh, who teaches at Sevenoaks School, has been given one of the highest honours in film after fighting for five years to get his novel about Coco Chanel's love affair with Russian composer Igor Stravinsky made into a movie, called Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky.
But despite the twist to his career, he tells his pupils he remains “just the guy who teaches them English”.
Mr Greenhalgh, 46, wrote Coco and Igor during the school holidays because there was not enough time in term. He used to joke that he made the book as “cinematic as possible” in the hope of selling the rights.
In a double life itself almost worthy of a screenplay, he found himself spending his summer holidays hanging out in the Hollywood hills with his screenwriting mentor, Exorcist director William Freidkin, who optioned the film.
Last summer he was on set in Paris and Grasse with former James Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Stravinsky, and French actress Anna Mouglalis as Chanel. By September it was back to school, coaxing students through their set texts as director Jan Kounen raced to have the film ready for Cannes, showing it to the selection committee on the last possible day.
The line-up for Cannes, being held from 13 to 24 May, includes films by Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodovar and Jane Campion. Mr Greenhalgh said: “It's a great honour. To close the festival is a real privilege. It's the next best thing to winning the Palme D'Or.”
Mr Greenhalgh, who lives in the Kent town with his wife and two sons, wrote two acclaimed collections of poetry, before publishing Coco and Igor, his first novel. It is set in 1920, the year Chanel invented Chanel No 5.
After the book's publication in 2002 Mr Greenhalgh was surprised by a message on his answermachine inviting him to Paris to talk about the film — he initially thought it was a joke — but getting the film made was a “lesson in patience”. He said: “For five years, there was a lot of talk and a lot of ideas but nothing happened. It was emotionally draining. There were so many false starts.
“It was just this time last year Jan became involved and from then on things moved very, very fast indeed.”
Despite Audrey Tautou starring in a rival film about Chanel's early life, Coco Avant Chanel, judges plumped for the more art house of the two films.
Mr Greenhalgh's Cannes appearance is not Sevenoaks School's first brush with film. Former pupils include Daniel Day-Lewis, and Paul Greengrass, the writer of the Bourne films.
