Sure, Andrew Garfield is busy on the set of Amazing Spider Man 2, and Martin Scorsese is wrapping up production of The Wolf Of Wall Street, premiering November 15, but Silence is where the director and his star are headed next.

Silence is being called a historical suspense film. Martin Scorsese and Jack Cocks (Gangs of New York, Age of Innocence), are collaborating on the adaptation of the screenplay from the late Shusaku Endo’s novel of the same name. It’s based on the true story of Father Cristavao Ferreira, a 17th century Jesuit priest and Christian missionary in Japan. At the time, a strictly Buddhist Japan tolerated no other religions. In 1633, Father Ferreira was captured and tortured  until he renounced Christianity.

In 1638, two Portugese Jesuit Priests, a Father Rodrigues, to be played by Andrew Garfield , and a Japanese interpreter, Ken Watanbe (The Last Samurai, Inception), travel to Japan to investigate what happened to Father Ferreira.

For Martin Scorsese, Silence is a passion project and unquestionably a personal film. He spoke with TotalFilm.com.

“The subject matter is very close to my heart. I’ve been working on the project, and overcoming obstacles to getting it into production for 24 years. It’s similar to Mean Streets, in a way,” the 71 year-old director explains. “It deals with spiritual matters in a concrete, physical world, a world where invariably the worst of human nature is revealed. It’s not going to be a ‘big film’, I’m taking a smaller, more internal approach, but there’s plenty of landscape,” he laughs.

Deadline reports that IM Global and Emmett/Furla Films, who are producing alongside Emma Kosloff, have already sold Silence for most major international territories, including: RAI for Italy, United King for Israel, Gaga for Japan, Gussi for Latin America, Mis Label for Scandinavia, Transmission for Australia.

Irwin Winkler, Vittorio Cecci Gori, and Barbara DeFina are executive producing.

Silence will begin filming in Taiwan next summer and will be released for Christmas, 2015.