Lydia Dean Pilcher’s tribute to three female spies who helped defeat the Nazis in the French Resistance of World War II has found a home. IFC Films snagged North American rights to “A Call to Spy,” the solo feature directorial debut of the Oscar-nominated producer. Deadline broke the news.
Set at the onset of WWII “when Winston Churchill ordered a new spy agency, the Special Operations Executive [SOE], to recruit and train female spies,” the historical thriller sees Sarah Megan Thomas (“Equity”) playing “real-life American spy Virginia Hall,” the source details. The SOE’s mission is to “sabotage and build a resistance.” The agency’s “‘spymistress,’ Vera Atkins (Stana Katic), recruits two unusual candidates: Hall, an ambitious American with a wooden leg, and Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Atpe), a Muslim pacifist. Together, these women help to undermine the Nazi regime in France, leaving an unmistakable legacy in their wake.”
Thomas penned the script and produced the pic.
“It’s rare to find a war movie with one complex female character – let alone three, as in ‘A Call to Spy.’ Lydia Dean Pilcher and Sarah Megan Thomas have beautifully crafted the true story of real women who confronted hatred in World War II, and we’re thrilled to bring their film the attention it deserves,” said Arianna Bocco, EVP of Acquisitions and Productions of IFC Films.
Pilcher commented, “These three women, driven by the stakes of humanity, had a choice to collaborate, do nothing, or resist. Their stories are more relevant today than ever.”
“We look forward to sharing with the world a film that humanizes brave people from different countries who came together in a time of crisis — understanding we are all in this together,” Thomas added.
“I was compelled by the challenge of portraying the journey of these women in a way that could show how the very existence of national and ethnic differences can stimulate deeper humanitarian connection,” Pilcher told us ahead of the pic’s world premiere at the 2019 Edinburgh Film Festival. “As we all face the current global epidemic of national extremism, it’s unsettling to realize we are facing the same conditions that set the stage for the Nazism. I really felt history was beckoning us to unsilence the voices of these women.”
The director and producer hopes that “A Call to Spy” will help audiences “feel inspired to realize we are not powerless. The construct of what it means to be a spy,” she explained, “is the perfect metaphor for a question that anyone can ask of themselves: how do we connect our external and internal personas to become one whole person? Can we escape the traps of our own character, the safety of convention, the inertia of the system to have an impact and control our own destiny?”
Pilcher co-directed Joey King-starrer “Radium Girls” alongside Ginny Mohler. The historical drama tells the story of women exposed to — and poisoned by — radium while working with glow-in-the-dark paint in a factory.
A fall release is being planned for “A Call to Spy.”
