Actress-director Angelina Jolie is teaming with online streaming service Netflix to direct the film “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers“.
Advertisement
“First They Killed My Father” was a bestseller and remains ubiquitous in bookshops and in the baskets of street-sellers around Cambodia’s tourist areas.
“I was deeply affected by Loung’s book”, said Jolie, cited in a Netflix statement.
“It deepened forever my understanding of how children experience war and are affected by the emotional memory of it”, said the actress.
[Jolie’s ties with Cambodia date back to 2001 when she starred in “Tomb Raider”, which was partly filmed around To Prohm temple in Angkor Wat. “[I am] excited that the film will reach so many people “. Jolie was especially keen on adapting and directing the movie because her son, Maddox, was born in Cambodia. The film will be released in both Khmer and English.
Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said: “We are proud to be working with Angelina Jolie in bringing this emotionally powerful and ultimately uplifting story exclusively to Netflix members around the world”.
‘It is with great homer that I entrust my family’s story to Angelina to adapt into a film.
“Loung Ung’s incredible journey is a testament to the human spirit and its ability to transcend even the toughest circumstances”, he added. Loung’s other works include Lucky Child and Lulu in the Sky.
Production should come together either later this year or in the early quarters of the next, once Jolie finishes post-production on By the Sea (a film she does star in, alongside her husband, in addition to also writing and producing) and does the film festival dance and its promotional runs before Universal releases the drama in theaters on November 13. That movie reportedly needed more time for script revisions and filming has been postponed. Jolie’s plan is to begin work on that film again after this newly-announced one, but to quote my mother, you know what they say about well-laid plans.
Advertisement
With that in mind, Jolie’s passion and closeness to the subject should be a blessing, but same determination didn’t save her previous picture.
