Alma Har’el made history with her narrative feature debut, becoming the first woman to win the DGA Award for First-Time Feature Film. Her sophomore feature will see the “Honey Boy” helmer adapting a beloved sci-fi novel: she’s been tapped to direct “Mockingbird” for Searchlight Pictures. Deadline confirmed the news.
Walter Tevis’ Nebula Award-nominated book “paints a perilous future of a declining human population, fueled by drugs and electronic bliss. A world without art, children, or books where humanity’s future hinges on a love triangle between an android, a man, and a woman,” the source teases.
“I’ll never forget the first time I read ‘Mockingbird’ on the shore of the Sinai peninsula in Egypt when I was 24 years old,” said Har’el. “This book has changed my life and I’ve been pursuing it for over a decade. I knew that Searchlight was the perfect home for it and I’m thrilled they are partnering with me to bring this to the big screen. Walter Tevis wrote a novel that refuses genre and time, choosing instead to awaken every fiber of your being.”
Har’el inked a first-look television deal with Amazon Studios last year. It will see her developing and creating exclusive series for Amazon Prime Video via her production company, Zusa. She’s currently in production on “Lady in the Lake,” an Apple TV+ limited series that she created and is directing. Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong’o star in the mystery inspired by real-life disappearances.
