VANESSA REDGRAVE TO LEAD THE OUTSIDE ROOM POWERFUL APARTHEID DRAMA AND STAR IN POST NAPOLEONIC THE MEDUSA WITH JESSE EISENBERG, PIERCE BROSNAN

   VANESSA REDGRAVE

THE LEAD THE OUTSIDE ROOM

This one was shopped at American Film Market this month: Oliver Schmitz’s big screen adaptation of novel Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk,

Vanessa Redgrave will play Milla

THE OUTSIDE ROOM with Vanessa Redgrave and Cynthia Erivo in the lead roles!

Milla, a 70 year old white woman, in the terminal stages of motor neuron disease, trapped in silence and confined to her bed, struggles to make herself "heard" by her black maid servant and now nurse, Agaat. Slowly the events leading to this room are recalled: 1950s when life in South Africa was full of promise Milla inherits her Grandmother's farm, marries the dashing but cruel Jak, enslaves herself to the farm to leave a lasting legacy, struggles to fall pregnant, discovers and "adopts" the young, abused Agaat, but when she falls pregnant demotes her to the role of servant. Agaat exacts her revenge becoming mother, sister, governess and best friend to the child and prevents him from forming any tangible relationships with his biological family. She asserts a terrible power by harnessing to herself the means and opportunities of the system that subjugated her. Milla's long, slow descent becomes an exercise in remembering and understanding, piecing together the fragments of a life.

The book was a bestseller around Europe

The Medusa About Gericault

Speaking of Vanessa Redgrave, she will also star in period set drama THE MEDUSA set during the turmoil of post Napoleonic France, and following famous artist Géricault (Jesse Eisenberg), who learns that his best friend (Pierce Brosnan) has died after the Naval vessel Medusa runs aground near Senegal. Plunged into grief, and entangled in a passionate but doomed love affair, Géricault begins to search for a reason to live. In this quest, he becomes morbidly obsessed with the disaster - and with seeing justice served.