24 July,2015 02:01 PM IST | | PTI
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
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.
