Saoirse Ronan is set to take the lead in the adaptation of the Camilla Gibb novel Sweetness in the Belly, according to Deadline. The film is being shopped by Hanway Films at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival for Sienna Films and Parallel Films. The project will reunite the actress with her Brooklyn producer Alan Maloney of Parallel Films.
Sweetness in the Belly also takes another note from Brooklyn and that is its “young woman torn between two worlds” story-line. Sweetness in the Belly will follow Ronan as Lilly Abdal, a girl born in England, but orphaned in Africa, where she is adopted and raised. She finally meets her birth parents and discovers her homeland when she escapes to London from Africa as a war refugee. She begins to lead and organize the disenfranchised immigrant community. In the midst of reuniting families and loved ones, she enters into a love affair with an idealistic doctor named Aziz.
The film begins shooting in September and will be directed by Zeresenay “Zee” Berhane Mehari. Mehari won the 2014 World Cinematic Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance for her Angelina Jolie-produced film Difret, which also won Berlin’s Audience Award in the Panorama Section.
Ronan became an Oscar nominee for her work in Brooklyn. Coming up, she will be starring in the adaptation of the Chekhov play The Seagull, the Ian McEwan adaptation On Chesil Beach, in the Vincent Van Gogh bio Loving Vincent, and in Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut Lady Bird.
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