CAROL Screenwriter to Helm THE VANISHED for CJ Entertainment

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CAROL Screenwriter to Helm THE VANISHED for CJ Entertainment

Mar 29, 2018

Writer by Pierce Conran
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Phyllis Nagy Boards Book Adaptation on the Japanese ‘Johatsu’

Academy Award nominated screenwriter Phyllis Nagy has been announced as the director for the forthcoming CJ Entertainment drama The Vanished. The project, which is based on a book of the same name, focuses on the true story of the ‘johatsu’, a term referring to the Japanese citizens who each year mysteriously disappear.

Nagy is known for penning the screenplay to Todd Haynes’ 2015 work Carol, which earned her an Oscar nomination. She previously directed the TV movie Mrs. Harris in 2005, which starred Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley.

Nagy will both direct and write the film adaptation of the best-selling nonfiction book, itself was written by journalist Lena Mauger and photographer Stephane Remael. The ‘johatsu’, or ‘evaporated’, number 100,000 annually and often disappear from their lives due to shame, crushing debt and feelings of hopelessness. The film will be set in Japan.

"The stories and images of the johatsu that are woven through Lena Mauger and Stephane Remael's remarkable book moved me profoundly," Nagy related. "Those who are disenfranchised, who have no voice, who are, in fact, wiped clean from the rolls of our collective society — these narratives, though specific to Japan, increasingly find their terrible parallels in all corners of the world. And these global connections and resonances draw me powerfully to this tale. I can't wait to begin to dive in with this material with CJ."

CJ Entertainment is developing, financing and producing the project, which will be the company’s second time adapting a French source text, following BONG Joon-ho’s 2013 sci-fi opus Snowpiercer, which was based on the graphic novel ‘Le Transperceneige’. JUNG Tae-sung and CJ Entertainment’s CEO and VP of Global Co-productions Francis CHUNG will be the producer while CJ Entertainment’s Head of International Division Mike IM will be the executive producer.

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