The life of author, adventurer, and businesswoman Karen Blixen might make its way to the screen once more. According to Deadline, Nordisk Film is developing “The Lioness,” an English-language biopic miniseries and feature about Blixen, who published the 1937 memoir “Out of Africa” under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen.
“The Lioness” will be based on historian Tom Buk-Swienty’s upcoming book about Blixen. Like “Out of Africa” and the 1985 Meryl Streep-Robert Redford film it was made into, Nordisk’s Blixen projects will focus on the time she spent as a coffee farmer in Kenya from 1914-31.
Nordisk’s Mikael Rieks (“Land of Mine”) and Jakob Weis (“That Time of Year”) are producing. No word on a director or screenwriter yet.
Born in Denmark in 1885, Blixen chafed against the confines of her upper class, Victorian upbringing. She eventually established her own coffee farm in colonial Kenya. She spent 17 years there, but due to hardships caused by World War I, poor harvests and natural disasters, the beginning of the Great Depression, and personal tragedy, she had to give up the farm.
Buk-Swienty’s biography of Blixen will hit shelves later this year. He “gained access to never before used source material documenting the business of the Karen Coffee Company,” the source details. “The material outlines Blixen’s role as a pioneering female CEO in charge of more than 1,000 workers and describes her often troubled dealings with her uncle, the wealthy businessman Aage Westenholz, who, as the main investor in the farm, lost a fortune on the failed business venture of his niece.”
“Karen Blixen had an insatiable appetite for wild adventure and her life was truly larger than life,” said Buk-Swienty. “I have followed her every step during her 17 years in Africa – from the outbreak of World War I to the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Her life in Africa was marked by one magnificent, wonderful, and at the same time, brutal and dangerous event after another.” He added, “She is both fabulous and terrible, reckless and spoiled, desperate and in love, but she never ceased to be an undaunted warrior with a heart of gold. She loved and admired the Africans and in her relentless struggle for the rights of her ‘black brothers’ as she called the native people, she was way ahead of her time.”
Short stories “Babette’s Feast” and “The Immortal Story” — both of which were also adapted into films — and “Out of Africa” follow-up memoir “Shadows on the Grass” are among Blixen’s other notable works. She died in 1962 at the age of 77.
Oscar and Emmy-winner Susanne Bier (“In a Better World”) was previously attached to direct and EP an “Out of Africa” TV series, but it’s unclear whether that project will move forward. The 1985 feature “Out of Africa” won seven Oscars, including best picture. Streep landed a best actress nod for portraying Blixen.
