Harsh Vardhan
After a five-year hiatus, the Academy Award-nominated director Roland Joffé is back in the director’s chair. The filmmaker will helm the historical drama film ‘Irena’s Children’ next. The shooting of the project is scheduled to begin in September. Slavica Bogdanov is behind the movie’s screenplay.
Set in 1942, the plot revolves around a social worker named Irena Sendler, who gains access to the Warsaw ghetto, where she witnesses the harrowing fate of several Jewish families. With immense courage, she embarks on a perilous mission to rescue children by organizing a clandestine network of helpers to smuggle them to safety. Employing daring tactics such as hiding them in coffins and sewers, she manages to save thousands of lives. Remarkably, Sendler maintains a secret list of the children’s identities buried under an apple tree, with the hope of reuniting them with their families after the war, unaware that many of them would never be found.
Joffé’s most recent work as a director is the 2019 TV movie ‘A Lover Scorned,’ which follows Brooke as she embarks on an affair with the charismatic Jake amidst a loveless marriage. His last feature film is ‘The Forgiven,’ depicting Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s encounter with a brutal murderer seeking redemption in post-apartheid South Africa. Joffé also helmed episodes of the show ‘Sun Records,’ chronicling Colonel Tom Parker’s efforts to control Elvis’ career while Sam grapples with the aftermath of letting his star go.
Additionally, Joffé directed five episodes of ‘Texas Rising,’ exploring the creation of the Texas Rangers. Among his other works are ‘The Lovers,’ an epic tale of forbidden love spanning time and continents, and ‘There Be Dragons,’ which uncovers the complex relationship between a young journalist and his father’s friend during the Spanish Civil War, ultimately revealing the power of forgiveness.
Joffé’s directorial portfolio includes projects such as ‘You and I,’ which follows the story of two teenage girls named Janie and Lana, who fall in love after meeting at a t.A.T.u concert, only to be drawn into a perilous world of obsession, drug abuse, and murder. He also helmed the horror mystery film ‘Captivity,’ in which a man and a woman wake up to discover themselves imprisoned in a cellar, and as their captor torments them, the horrifying truth about their abduction gradually comes to light. The filmmaker was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for ‘The Killing Fields’ in 1984 and ‘The Mission’ in 1986.
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