See-Saw Films, the company that produced The King’s Speech, has secured the rights to Saroo Brierley’s bestselling autobiography A Long Way Home, the story of reuniting with his birth mother in India, after tracking her down using just Google Earth and childhood memories of his hometown 25 years after being separated from her.
Brierley was adopted by a couple in Tasmania after being separated from his family town of Khanwa and finding himself alone in Calcutta, 1500 kilometers away, at age 5.
“As a filmmaker, Saroo’s life story is irresistible. The moment we heard it, we knew it had all the elements that make for great cinema. There is perhaps no greater human drive that the desire to find out who we are and to know our mothers. This, along with the incredible contrast between of our high tech world and the streets of Calcutta, make for an unforgettable story,” See-Saw Films said in a statement.
See-Saw is also currently in post-production on Tracks, a film directed by John Curran and starring Mia Wasikowska, based on Robyn Davidson’s nine-month journey on camels across the Australian desert. The film has a $12 million budget and began shooting in October 2012.
There have been previous attempts to turn the book into a film , including the 1993 project which was set to star Julia Roberts before falling through.
Sunstar Entertainment, formed in 2010 by Andrew Fraser, Daniel Starling and Shahen Mekertichian, are also in production on True Spirit, the story of Jessica Watson.
In 2010 Watson became the youngest person ever to sail solo around the world, non-stop and unassisted. In 2011 she was awarded the Young Australia of The Year Award.
True Spirit is slated for release at the end of 2014.
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About the Contributor
Andrew Cattanach
Andrew Cattanach is a regular contributor to The Booktopia Blog. He has been shortlisted for The Age Short Story Prize and was named a finalist for the 2015 Young Bookseller of the Year Award. He enjoys reading, writing and sleeping, though finds it difficult to do them all at once.
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