Angelina Jolie Pitt will direct an adaptation of a memoir of a survivor of the Cambodian genocide for Netflix, the Internet television network announced today.
Jolie Pitt joined author Loung Ung in adapting Ung’s book “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers,” for the screen.
Jolie Pitt called adapting the book “a dream come true.”
“I was deeply affected by Loung’s book,” Jolie Pitt said. “It deepened forever my understanding of how children experience war and are affected by the emotional memory of it.”
The film will be released on Netflix in late 2016, then be shown at major international film festivals. The film will be released in both English and Khmer.
Production will begin this year in Cambodia.
Ung was 5 years old when the Khmer Rouge assumed power over Cambodia in 1975 and began a four-year reign of terror and genocide in which nearly two million Cambodians died.
Forced from her family’s home in Phnom Penh, Ung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans while her six siblings were sent to labor camps.
“First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers,” was published in 2000. Jolie Pitt read the book and met Ung in 2001.
Jolie Pitt said Netflix’s global reach was a major factor in her reaching agreement with the streaming service.
“Films like this are hard to watch but important to see,” said Jolie Pitt. “They are also hard to get made. Netflix is making this possible, and I am looking forward to working with them and excited that the film will reach so many people.”
