Marion Cotillard Joins ‘A Prophet’ Director Jacques Audiard’s New Film ‘Rust & Blood’

While she’s certainly gone Hollywood with appearances in “Inception,” “Midnight In Paris,” “Contagion” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” Academy-Award winning actress Marion Cotillard has not forgotten her French roots.

Last year she appeared in her partner Guillaume Canet‘s third directorial effort, the French-language film, “Little White Lies,” and the “La Vie en Rose” actress is now planning a collaboration with one of France’s most revered auteurs, Jacques Audiard.

Known for “The Beat That My Heart Skipped” (2005) and “A Prophet” (2010), both films of which won him the César Award for Best Director (France’s Oscar equivalent), Audiard is now ramping up his next film which will be “Rust and Bone,” adaptation of Canadian writer Craig Davidson‘s short story collection.

In a 2005 book review, the New York Times said, in its various stories, the author attempts to “plunges a child under the ice and into a permanent coma, rips the face off a dog, lets a killer whale bite off his trainer’s leg and finally snaps a character’s manhood in two in a series of unsuccessful attempts to win the reader’s sympathy that are equal parts amusing, appalling and just plain gross.”

Budgeted around $22 million, shooting begins in France in late September for a period of eight weeks and alongside Cotillard, the picture also feature foreign stars Matthias Schoenarts (“Bullhead“), Celine Sallette (“House of Tolerance“) and Bouli Lanners (“Nothing to Declare“).

“A Prophet” won the Grand Prix prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and was one of our favorite films of 2010, the year it was released in North America. Thomas Bidegain, who co-wrote that film with Audiard, will collaborate on the screenplay with the director once again.

First reported by the French press, Variety confirmed the news stateside this evening.