He has been testing the waters for some time now in terms of fiction (with Chinks in active development) but Minding the Gap docu-helmer Bing Liu‘s fiction debut will be the book-to-film adaptation of the prize-winning novel Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish (his debut novel). Plan B’s Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Pastel’s Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak, MGM Studios, and Orion Pictures are all getting behind the project. Production is set for this coming fall in New York city. They are currently casting the film.
Written by Polish-born American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok, this is about a Chinese Muslim refugee who is smuggled into the country in a truck and is determined to survive whatever America throws at her. After three months in detention, Zou Lei is released without explanation and finds her way to Queens, New York. She becomes romantically involved with an Iraq War veteran suffering from PTSD, initially connecting over a shared obsession with fitness.
We profiled Bing back in 2018, and among his top ten films of all time list he included Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight. Folks, that’s called serendipity!
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
