The Green Knight‘s David Lowery has set his next feature with Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, the anarchic whodunnit and otherworldly psychological thriller, Death in Her Hands based on American author Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2020 novel.
See-Saw Films
Swinton plays a woman striving to take control of her own story in the new project from Oscar winning See-Saw Films. In the Lowery scripted title recent widow Vesta Gul (Tilda Swinton) comes across a chilling handwritten note in the woods near her home: “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.” Except there is no body. No blood. Unmoored by the death of her husband and armed only with a camera, her dog Charlie, and her vivid imagination, Vesta becomes obsessed with uncovering Magda’s identity and fate. As her inner world begins to eclipse reality, the mystery of Magda threatens Vesta’s grip on her own life – until, in a spellbinding operatic climax, we realize that Magda’s death may finally allow Vesta to live.
Cross City Films, See-Saw’s in-house sales arm, are teaming up with WME Independent to secure financing at Cannes.
Death in Her Hands is produced by Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Jeanie Igoe; EPs are Simon Gillis and Ann Phillips.
Lowery exclaimed, “I am a devoted fan of Ottessa Moshfegh, and the opportunity to translate Death In Her Hands to the big screen has been, in some ways, a subterfuge for getting to spend a great deal of time obsessing over her prose. But now the ruse is up! The script begot by the novel will soon become a film, and I am suddenly aware more than ever that adapting this particular work represents a devious challenge (anyone who’s read the novel will understand why)! But I’m ready for it, and am emboldened to have such wonderful collaborators at my side: the whole team at See-Saw, Jeanie, and of course, the incredible Tilda Swinton, who I know will illuminate Ottessa’s story in ways I could only dream of.”
Producers Canning and Sherman said “David Lowery is a master of crafting striking, atmospheric stories, and there’s no one better to bring Ottessa Moshfegh’s haunting and brilliant novel to the screen. We can’t wait for audiences to step into the world he creates and be swept away by Vesta’s story, played by the incomparable, magnetic, and endlessly compelling Tilda Swinton.”
Lowery’s directing credits include Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Pete’s Dragon, The Old Man & The Gun, Peter Pan & Wendy, and Green Knight. Swinton won a 2008 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Michael Clayton. She next stars in Edward Berger’s The Ballad of a Small Player opposite Colin Farrell.
Swinton is repped by Hamilton Hoddell, CAA and Peikoff Mahan. Lowery is repped by WME and Victoria Cook at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.
