When Trelkovsky, a Parisian in desperate need of a place to live, comes across an affordable apartment, he jumps at the chance to rent it, undaunted by the fact that the previous tenant hurled herself through the window. A surrealist horror novel, The Tenant was described by writer John Fowles as a book in ‘the Kafka tradition’. It was adapted into a 1976 feature film of the same name by Roman Polanski.

Roland Topor was a playwright, screenwriter, set designer, artist and co-founder of the ‘Panic Movement’, an artistic group with filmmakers, Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo) and Fernando Arrabal. He acted in the role of Renfield in Herzog’s Nosferatu. He created the artwork for René Laloux’s psychedelic animated film, La Planète Sauvage (1973) which won the Prix Spécial at Cannes.