Debra Granik, best known for her 2010 indie sensation “Winter’s Bone,” is set to co-write and direct a new adventure drama. The Tracking Board reports that Granik is working on an adaptation of Peter Rock’s 2009 novel “My Abandonment.”
The book is told through the perspective of a 13-year-old girl, and was inspired by a true story. The girl lives with her father in an expansive nature preserve in Portland, Oregon. The Tracking Board summarizes, “They inhabit an elaborate cave shelter, wash in a nearby creek, store perishables at the water’s edge, use a makeshift septic system, tend a garden, even keep a library of sorts. Once a week they go to the city to buy groceries and otherwise merge with the civilized world. But one small mistake allows a back country jogger to discover them, which derails their entire existence, ultimately provoking a deeper flight.”
Famed sci-fi writer Ursula K. Le Guin praised the “beautiful, strange” story. “Fascinating and moving, it tells us with great tenderness how human love goes wrong,” she hinted.
Filming is expected to kick off this fall in Portland. Casey Affleck (“Gone Baby Gone”) is rumored to star. No word on the female lead yet.
Granik is collaborating on the script with Anne Rosellini, her producing partner. Rosellini is producing with Linda Reisman and Anne Harrison of ReVision Films (“The Danish Girl”).
“Winter’s Bone” grossed over $13.5 million on a $2 million budget, and earned four Academy Award nominations, including a Best Actress nod for its breakout star Jennifer Lawrence. Granik’s other credits include the 2004 Sundance winner “Down to the Bone” and “Stray Dog,” a 2015 doc about a Ron “Stray Dog” Hall, a biker and Vietnam vet. Granik met “Stray Dog” while she was working on “Winter’s Bone.”
When Women and Hollywood asked Granik her advice for female filmmakers, she said, “Work on thickening the skin. Easier to say than do, of course. I’ve had to learn to evaluate the feedback I get on work to decide which suggestions I want to consider, and which I have to push aside in order to retain my own taste, vision, and gut sense about things. Surround yourself with a group of collaborators with whom you enjoy discovering ideas and making work.”
