Miramax rings up 'Diving Bell' for N. America

May 25, 2007 Miramax Films nabbed all North American rights to one of the most sought-after titles of the fest, Julian Schnabel's French-language drama "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon) for around $3 million. The film is based on the memoir of former Elle France magazine editor in chief Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), who became a paraplegic after a stroke. The hallucinogenic film, shot by Janusz Kaminski, brings the audience into Bauby's mind and also follows the lives of his loved ones, including his father (Max Von Sydow), children and their mother (Emmanuelle Seigner) as he attempts to complete his memoir by Morse code-style blinking.

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