Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal are set to reunite as turbulent lovers once again as they join Benh Zeitlin’s love story Hold on to Your Angels. Zeitlin, responsible for fantasy works such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and Wendy, wrote the script and will direct the feature in South Louisiana. Zeitlin said of the film,

Hold on to Your Angels is the most impossible love story I’ve ever witnessed — an outlaw romance for the end of America, set on the crumbling edge of South Louisiana. I’ve been dreaming of telling it since its hero, Pam Harper, walked into an audition for Beasts of the Southern Wild seventeen years ago. It’s a love letter to an endangered way of life — and a rallying cry for empathy across a fractured planet.

According to the official plot synopsis of the film, Buckley will portray “a ferocious shepherd of lost souls” opposite Mescal’s “hell-bound outlaw,” who eventually “fall in catastrophic love as their crumbling bayou paradise drags them under.” Buckley is coming back from her recent Best Actress Oscar win for Hamnet, in which she starred with Mescal playing William Shakespeare’s wife as she deals with the loss of her son, Hamnet. Plan B is set to produce the feature alongside Academy Award winner Alex Coco, who will produce under his Rapt Film Banner.  Plan B and Coco both put out statements, expressing their excitement for this Southern epic, fantastical love story.

Benh Zeitlin absolutely stunned us and the world at large with the cosmic sorcery of Beasts Of The Southern Wild. With Hold On To Your Angels, Benh has set his powerful mix of intense realism, myth, and magic against the large scale of an epic love story. This is a writer/director with a vision for the ages and we could not be more proud to be by his side to make this film with Jessie and Paul. – Plan B

After years of working with filmmakers that explore the overlooked corners of our world, I can recognize Benh Zeitlin as a filmmaker with that rare gift: the ability to reveal profound beauty and humanity in parts of America that seldom find their way onto the silver screen. – Alex Coco

Filming is expected to begin in February.