Los Angeles:
Hollywood star Angelina Jolie Pitt is going to direct a movie for
Netflix based memoir from Cambodian author and human-rights activist
Loung Ung about surviving the deadly Khmer Rouge regime.
Angelina Jolie. Pic/AFP
Titled 'First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia
Remembers', Angelina Jolie, 40, will direct and produce the Netflix
project from a script she co-adapted with Ung, reported Variety.
Cambodian director and producer Rithy Panh, director of Oscar-nominated
foreign-language film 'The Missing Picture', is also one of the
producers.
"I was deeply affected by Loung's book. It deepened forever my
understanding of how children experience war and are affected by the
emotional memory of it. And it helped me draw closer still to the people
of Cambodia, my son's homeland. "It is a dream come true to be able to
adapt this book for the screen, and I'm honoured to work alongside Loung
and filmmaker Rithy Panh," Angelina Jolie said.
'In the Land of Blood and Honey' director and Ung first met over a
decade ago when she read Ung's memoir. They became close friends and
later adapted the screenplay together. "Angelina and I met in 2001 in
Cambodia, and immediately, I trusted Angelina's heart. Through the
years, we have become close friends, and my admiration for Angelina as a
woman, a mother, a filmmaker and a humanitarian has only grown. It is
with great Honor that I entrust my family's story to Angelina to adapt
into a film," Ung said.
The writer was 5 years old when the Khmer Rouge regime assumed power
over Cambodia in 1975 and began a four-year reign of terror and genocide
in which nearly 2 million Cambodians died. She survived and went to
write 'First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers',
which was first published in 2000. The film will be made available to
members of the streaming service in late 2016 and will be submitted to
major international festivals.
'Maleficent' star's Cambodian-born son, Maddox, will also be involved in the production of the film.
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