Oscar-winning actress, earth mother and director Angelina Jolie’s next directorial endeavour will be a Netflix film based on the life of Loung Ung, a Cambodian human-rights activist who survived the Khmer Rouge regime. Ung’s memoir, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers details how the author was taken from her family in 1975, age five, to an orphan work camp and trained as a child soldier. Already close friends with Loung, Angelina was deeply affected by her book. “It deepened forever my understanding of how children experience war and are affected by the emotional memory of it,” she said. “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.”
The film will be the latest in Angelina’s impressive portfolio depicting heroic figures, having won awards for last year’s Unbroken and directed the forthcoming Africa, and is reported to involve her Cambodian-born son, Maddox. “Films like this are hard to watch but important to see,” she added.
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Photography Gage Skidmore