Writer-director Neil Jordan will collaborate on a new film with playwright and film director Conor McPherson, it was announced yesterday.
The film, Our Lady of the Forest, deals with a troubled 16-year-old girl who claims to have seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary.
The girl is a runaway who left the family home after being repeatedly raped by her mother's boyfriend. The film is based on the novel of the same name by US author David Guterson, whose book, Snow Falling on Cedars, was filmed in 1998.
McPherson, whose plays include The Weir and the recent Shining City, has adapted Guterson's book for the screen. McPherson has written and directed two feature films, The Actors, on which Jordan was a producer, and Saltwater, in addition to writing the screenplay for the Irish road movie, I Went Down.
The film of Our Lady of the Forest has the financial backing of Film Four, the film division of broadcaster Channel 4, which is producing the film with Wild Child Films. Additional financing comes from the development fund at the British government-backed support body, the Film Council.
"I am an enormous fan of Neil Jordan and of Conor McPherson," said Tessa Ross, head of Film Four. "I've no doubt that these two will form a fantastic creative team, and will bring David Guterson's compelling novel to life."
Jordan, who won the 1993 Oscar for best original screenplay for The Crying Game, is at present in the final stages of post-production on his 14th feature film, Breakfast on Pluto, his second film based on a Patrick McCabe novel after The Butcher Boy in 1997.
Breakfast on Pluto stars Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson.