Lone Scherfig is teaming up with an Oscar-nominated actress on a love letter to cinema. Scherfig is set to direct “The Movie Teller,” the story of a mother and daughter whose love of films transforms their community. Bérénice Bejo, best known for her role in “The Artist,” will topline the Spanish-language pic. Variety broke the news.
“The Movie Teller” tells the story of María Magnolia (Bejo), a woman who “defiantly chases her creative ambitions, despite the hardships of life in the harsh yet beautiful Atacama Desert during the 1960s. She inspires in her daughter María Margarita (played by newcomer Sara Becker) a passion for cinema and, in a town where many families are unable to afford tickets to the cinema, María Margarita soon becomes the resident ‘movie teller,’ re-telling the stories of the movies only she has seen,” the source details. “Through the girl’s fertile imagination, cinema’s classics come alive for her people, inspiring them with hope and reflecting their own struggle in her stories of drama, humor, adventure, romance, and courage.”
“The movie is about the survival of one of the greatest human assets – our expansive imagination and shared language,” said Scherfig. “Fascination, knowledge, fear, anger, love, and fun: ‘The Movie Teller’ is highly relevant, primarily in illuminating the life of a neglected child growing up in poverty, one child amongst hundreds of millions today.” She emphasized, “The movie also reflects the magic role of storytelling on the stage and on the big screen – as a window to the world, as a place of healing as well as a place that unites people.”
Scherfig received two BAFTA nominations for 2009 Carey Mulligan-starrer “An Education.” “Their Finest” and “One Day” are among her other credits. Zoe Kazan led her last feature, 2019’s “The Kindness of Strangers.”
Bejo’s recent credits include “A Bookshop in Paris” and “A Friendly Tale.”
Worldwide sales for “The Movie Teller” are being launched at the American Film Market (AFM), which is being held digitally for the second year in a row. It is taking place November 1-5.
