Drunk birds Actress Maren Johnson and Italian Luca Colucci got the lead roles in the film Kim Nguyen hourglass A suspense drama, production began in the Canary Islands, Spain.
Johnson will play Edith Blaise and Colucci will play Luca Taketo, two traveling companions who are kidnapped and held captive by a terrorist group in Mali for 465 days, before a near-suicidal escape. Nguyen adapted a book written by Blaise, The Weight of Sand: 450 Days of Being Hostage in the Desert Which details their time in captivity.
As written by Nguyen, hourglass As a co-production between Canada and France, it is the director’s ninth film, and follows his win of the Silver Bear in Berlin. War witch, two lovers and a bear, which bowed in Cannes; eye on juliet, Which won the European Critics Prize in Venice; and hummingbird project, Which starred Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgård as New York cousins who encounter high-frequency business mogul Salma Hayek and make their Toronto debut.
The film will also be shot in Morocco and Montreal until mid-May. The cast includes Duke Koma, Mouloud Ayed, Marianne Fortier and Jean Boye.
“We can’t wait for audiences everywhere to discover the talent of Luca Colucci, the Swiss-Italian actor whose presence transcends the screen. The chemistry and connection between him and Maren Johnson have captivated us since the first auditions. Their shared energy is incomparable and reveals the intensity of the experience that Edith and Luca lived,” Pierre Even, who is producing the film for Montreal-based End 7, said in a statement. Jerome Vidal of Noodles Production is the French co-producer.
After visiting the set in the Canary Islands, Edith Blaise added in her own statement: “I came here to offer advice and help, but I also felt that people took care of me and did something beautiful for me. I am very grateful to the whole team. In fact, I feel that I contributed something, but in a more abstract way than I expected. Maybe a face to the story, an energy… I’m not sure I know how to explain it.
hourglass It will be released theatrically in Canada by Les Films Opale and Entract Films in 2027.
