The socially impactful New York bestselling memoir Dying To Be Me by Anita Moorjani is set to start the film-making process, with Jenna Mirza Mattison and Wonderstreet leading the feature adaptation. Conceived initially from India, Jenna Mirza Mattison moved to Chicago with her family at age seven. At fourteen, she began her career writing short stories and acting in theater productions.
Wonderstreet hiring Jenna Mirza Mattison to Adapt Dying To Be Me seems to be a great combination of producing a socially impactful film. Wonderstreet’s resume includes the Netflix series Self Made: Inspired By The Life Of Madam C.J. Walker and Beast Of No Nation. As for Jenna Mirza Mattison, she always considered her ethnicity to be one of the reasons why she struggled to land roles in her early career, hence the name change. Jenna previously worked on The Love Of Money and The Sound.
The Memoir Dying To Be Me is about Anita Moorjani’s fight with cancer. In four years, her body begins to shut down, and as her organs fail, death begins knocking on her door. Once she regains consciousness, she discovers her true potential, and her disease begins to leave, resulting in the cancer leaving the body entirely.
There’s a short film by Deva Katta titled Dying To Be Me, released in 2015, which emphasizes women’s empowerment, surfacing the struggle of Indian women.
While no release date is set, we are excited to see this adaptation on the silver screen.