Playwright Christopher Adams to Adapt Screenplay for Undiscovered LGBTQ Classic ‘Finistère’
variety.comMatt Donnelly Senior Film WriterPlaywright Christopher Adams has been tapped to pen a screenplay based on the novel “Finistère.”While not widely known, the novel is a groundbreaking early tale of a gay man who falls in love with his tennis instructor at a French boarding school in the 1920s.
It was written by Fritz Peters, whose entire catalogue was recently acquired by Hirsch Giovanni Entertainment.“Beyond his impressive curriculum vitae, what impressed us with Chris was his deep understanding of the novel and his passion to speak to modern audiences while honoring the text,” said producer and managing partner David M.
Hirsch.Adams is a noted English playwright who recently adapted the limited series “Aubade” for FilmNation. That series is based on a controversial 1957 queer Northern Irish novel. “Finistère” was published in 1951, and sold over 350,000 copies.
It was praised by major critics such as Gore Vidal, who wrote that author Peters “created a fine and passionate novel. It is almost as if two of those idealized youths in Plato’s ‘Symposium’ had for one brilliant moment come alive again in a sunlit beach near the land’s end of Europe.”Adams is a PhD candidate specializing in queer publishing history at the Institute of English Studies in London.“I first came across Fritz Peters’ masterpiece while researching the publishing history of gay novels.
