“Jackie” director Pablo Larraín is attached to helm Annapurna’s “The True American,” the fact-based story of an immigrant from Bangladesh who fought to have the man who attempted to gun him down spared from execution, TheWrap has learned.
The film is based on a book by Anand Giridharadas, “The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas,” which was published in 2014 by W.W. Norton & Company. It tells the true story of Rais Bhuiyan, a Bangladeshi American who was shot in the face while working at a convenience store in Dallas by a self-styled “Arab Slayer,” then worked to spare his attacker from the death penalty.
Megan Ellison, Kathryn Bigelow, Matthew Budman and Juan de Dios Larraín will produce the film.
Bigelow, who is directing a still-untitled feature about the 1967 Detroit riots that will be the first movie distributed by Annapurna this August, was attached to direct “The True American” at one point.
Annapurna launched a full-fledged distribution arm in January.
Larraín also directed “Neruda,” a biopic about the poet from his home country of Chile that was the country’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars. He is represented by CAA and Management 360.