Natalie Portman debuta como directora con «A Tale of Love and Darkness»

Hoy se supo que Natalie Portman ha firmado un contrato de dos años con la productora Participant Productions para dirigir su primera película. Será la adaptación del bestseller «A Tale of Love and Darkness» (Una historia de amor y oscuridad), las memorias del escritor israelí Amos Oz, que Portman realizará a traves de su compañía Handsomecharlie Films.

La guionista del filme sería Naomi Foner, la mamá de de Jake y Maggie Gyllenhaal. La descripción del libro dice algo así:

Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this bestselling and critically acclaimed new work by “one of Israel’s most gifted and prolific authors” (Helen Epstein, The Forward) is at once a family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history.

It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. The story of an adolescent whose life has been changed forever by his mother’s suicide when he was twelve years old. The story of a man who leaves the constraints of his family and its community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz, change his name, marry, have children. The story of a writer who becomes an active participant in the political life of his nation.

Natalie declaró lo siguiente sobre su interés en esta historia para su ópera prima: «We all have the same desire to make meaningful and artistically fulfilling films and are committed to the idea of stories leading to greater empathy and action for world issues». Amén.