Without Blood, starring Salma Hayek and Demián Bichir, marks Angelina Jolie’s return to directing after 2017’s First They Killed My Father
Angelina Jolie attends the “The Eternals” UK Premiere at BFI IMAX Waterloo on October 27, 2021 in London, England. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)
EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE – WALT DISNEY TELEVISION – TCA Winter Press Tour. (Image Group LA via Getty Images)
DEMIÁN BICHIR
Angelina Jolie is headed back to the director’s chair.
The 47-year-old Oscar winner will direct and write the upcoming film Without Blood, marking her first big-screen directing project since 2017’s First They Killed My Father, reports Variety.
Produced under Fremantle and the star’s Jolie Productions, Without Blood is set to star Salma Hayek (whom Jolie recently appeared with in Eternals) and Demián Bichir.
According to Variety, the film will touch on “universal truths about war, trauma, memory and healing,” and is based on Italian author Alessandro Baricco’s best-selling novel of the same name.
“I’m honored to be here in Italy to bring this very special material to film, and to have been entrusted by Alessandro Baricco with the adaptation of his book — with its unique poetry and emotion and way of looking at war, and the questions it poses about what we search for after trauma or loss or injustice,” Jolie said, per Variety.
According to an official synopsis of the book, it is “an unforgettable fable about the brutality of war — and one girl’s quest for revenge and healing.”
“When — in an unnamed place and time — Manuel Roca’s enemies hunt him down to kill him, they fail to discover Nina, his youngest child, hidden in a hole beneath his farmhouse floor. After this carnage Tito, one of the murderers, discovers Nina’s trapdoor,” the synopsis continues. “Enthralled by the sight of Nina’s perfect innocence, he keeps quiet.”
“By the time she has grown up, Nina’s innocence will have bloomed into something else altogether, and one by one the wartime hunters will become the peacetime hunted. But not until a striking old woman calls upon a familiar old man selling newspapers in town can we know what Nina will ultimately make of her brutal legacy,” it concludes.
Without Blood is the first project in Jolie’s three-year international filmmaking agreement with Fremantle.
“To have the freedom to tell important stories and bring them to a global audience is at the heart of this agreement with Fremantle,” Jolie in a March news release at the time.
“I am excited to be working with such a passionate and forward-looking team that has an international perspective,” she added.
In a 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly surrounding the release of her thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead, the star touched on why she hasn’t taken on a directing gig since 2017’s First They Killed My Father.
“I love directing, but I had a change in my family situation that’s not made it possible for me to direct for a few years,” said Jolie, who is still going through a divorce from ex Brad Pitt after she first filed back in 2016. The two share six children.
“I needed to just do shorter jobs and be home more, so I kind of went back to doing a few acting jobs,” Jolie told EW. “That’s really the truth of it.”
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