Miramax Films is developing Boy in the Striped Pajamas, the story of a German family living in the town of Auschwitz based on John Boyne’s novel, and set it up with David Heyman’s Heyday Films to produce. Vera Farmiga (The Departed) will star.
Filmmaker Mark Herman (Little Voices) is set to begin shooting in Budapest at the end of April, with Miramax’s Daniel Battsek eyeing an end-of-the-year awards run. Herman wrote the adapted screenplay.
It’s only the second inhouse production solely owned by Miramax that Battsek has greenlit after Gone, Baby, Gone, Ben Affleck’s directorial debut.
Boyne’s novel, published last year, revolves around a German family that relocates to the town of Auschwitz after the father takes a posting ordered by Hitler himself, with an unlikely friendship developing between two boys living on opposite sides of the concentration camp fence.
Farmiga will play the wife and mother, who grows horrified when she begins to suspect the truth of the camp.
