EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Oscar nominee Naomi Watts (The Impossible) and Marty Supreme breakout and BAFTA and Actors Award nominee Odessa A’zion have joined Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story), Dianne Wiest (Edward Scissorhands) and Toby Wallace (Euphoria S3) in Cody Fern‘s untitled feature film that is now filming in Montreal.
Set against the backdrop of a Broadway production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage, the film centers on Sandra Vale (Paulson), “a celebrated actress whose life begins to unravel on the eve of her greatest performance. When her sister April (Watts) arrives in New York after a 30-year estrangement, the stage is set for a tense family confrontation. Wiest plays vitriolic family matriarch Diane, while Wallace plays April’s son, Theo. A’zion will portray Lucy, a willful rebel on the edge of a life-altering decision.”
The project, which we first revealed last year, is the highest-profile film to go into production for A’zion since her breakout performances in HBO’s I Love LA and Oscar nominee Marty Supreme.
Matilda Comers (In Vitro) and Will Howarth (In Vitro) of production and management firm Fictious have newly come aboard as producers alongside Nancy Grant (Sentimental Value) and Rosalie Chicoine Perreault (Geographies of Solitude).
The film marks the feature directorial debut of actor Fern (American Horror Story), who wrote the screenplay with fellow actor Devon Bostick (Oppenheimer). Yves Bélanger (Big Little Lies, Dallas Buyers Club) has joined as cinematographer.
Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent sales firm mk2 Films will continue international sales at the upcoming European Film Market. Financing partners include Screen Australia and Telefilm Canada through the co-production treaty. Distribution deals are in place with Elevation Pictures for Canada, Icon in Australia, and Ad Vitam in France.
Timothy White, Tanya Lapointe, Amanda Freedman, Lucile Vainstein, Raphael Quenard and Patrick DesRosiers serve as executive producers.
The project will be Fictious’ follow-up to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab–developed thriller In Vitro. Watts next stars in the psychological drama The Housewife, as well as in Ryan Murphy’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.
Fern is represented by CAA; Bostick by Gersh, Principal Entertainment LA, and Myman Greenspan; Paulson by CAA; Watts by CAA, Untitled, and HJTH; Wiest by WME; Wallace by CAA, CP Artist Management, and Sloane, Offer; and A’zion by UTA, Luber Roklin, and Granderson Des Rochers.