Literary powerhouse Zadie Smith first turned (a lot of) heads with her post-modern epic White Teeth in 2000, quickly ushering herself into the very exclusive set of post-Baby Boomer writers that have actually been able to make a career for themselves in modern publishing. Besides her four novels, Smith has also built her reputation with essays and interviews (her New York Times piece on Jay Z is essential reading), so it’s no surprise to hear that she’s going to be diving into the realm of screenwriting next.
Very possibly related to (or adapted from) the sci-fi novel that Smith was supposedly working on within the last few years, the script is being written for French arthouse director Claire Denis (35 Shots of Rum, Beau Travail), and is set to take place somewhere “beyond the solar system.” Smith’s husband Nick Laird is co-authoring the script, and French physicist Aurélien Barrau is also involved in some capacity (which should help in getting Neil deGrasse Tyson to like this one as much as he did Interstellar).
If you’re dying to get a better idea of what this project will actually be like, Denis conveniently made a three-minute abstract short last year entitled Contact, which was in collaboration with the installation artist Olafur Eliasson, who is also said to be connected to the as-yet untitled feature production. That de-facto teaser is below.
The film is set to begin shooting late this year, or early in 2016.
(via The A.V. Club)
