Steven Spielberg To Produce New World War II Film
Steven Spielberg. Image by Getty Images
It seems like just yesterday Elizabeth Banks was accusing Steven Spielberg of never having directed a movie with a female lead.
Of course, Banks was quickly put in her place and apologized after hordes of people reminded her that Spielberg was behind the film “The Color Purple”, which had a black female lead. But is it possible Bank’s comments stayed with Spielberg?
Possibly, considering the director’s production company has announcedthat it will be producing a new World War II film told from a woman’s perspective.
The film will be based on the forthcoming book “Daughters of the Resistance: Valor, Fury, And the Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos”, by Judy Batalion.
The book proposal is largely based on first-hand accounts of young Jewish women fighting in the Resistance against the Nazis, most of which were written in Yiddish. The author, who discovered these first-hand accounts, is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.
The book will not be published until 2020, which I suppose is how book optioning works nowadays. Spielberg has not offered a timeline for the project’s completion.
Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. Follow her on Twitter, @arr_scott
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
