PHOEBE GALLAGHER
Ewan McGregor and Evan Rachel Wood are in talks for “The Prince of Tehran”, a Kari Skogland-directed piece that’ll be a fat focus at AFM in a week’s time.
We’re told the script, which sounds like an engrossing cross between “Midnight Express” and “Bangkok Hilton”, is based on a harrowing, super-emotional true story set after the 1980 Iranian revolution where a 16-year-old Christian schoolgirl named Marina Nemat was, in 1982 after being arrested for leading a protest against the requirement to study the Koran , sentenced to death at the infamous Evin prison.
Salvation came for the girl in the form of Ali, a young guard that falls in love with the girl, ultimately proposing they get married – which would involve her adopting Islam – to save her life. The tale has a rather tragic end, but Marina’s story has emerged a heroine with an important, much-heard voice.
Intandem Films, which also just picked up the new Antoine Fuqua police thriller “Ocean Beach”, will produce the film, which McGregor (“The Impossible”) and Wood (“True Blood”) will have pivotal supporting roles in. Rest of the cast to be announced post-AFM.
