After blowing international audiences away in 2017 with the crime horror fantasy Tigers Are Not Afraid, Mexican filmmaker Issa López is teaming up with indie production powerhouse Blumhouse to adapt and helm Our Lady of Tears, according to Deadline.
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The film, based on Daniel Hernandez’s Epic Magazine and Vox article “The Haunting of Girlstown,” focuses on a mass hysteria epidemic with supernatural roots that spread through Villa de las Niñas, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in 2007. The school recruited and isolated socially-neglected girls from families suffering from extreme poverty and living in remote areas of Mexico. The project is being described as in the same spiritual vein as López’s breakout hit Tigers Are Not Afraid.
“The moment I read the Epic article, I knew I wanted to tell this story,” López said in a statement. “I myself attended a Catholic school in Mexico City. I grew up on a steady diet of supernatural visitations and miracles, and of the real life horrors that young girls who grow up in poverty face every day in Mexico, and around the world. Having the chance to tell that story with Jason and his team, producers of such socially incisive genre classics like Get Out, and of so many true horror gems, is a huge privilege. I couldn’t be more excited about this movie.“
López is set t adapt the script and direct the project, while Blumhouse co-founder and namesake Jason Blum will produce alongside Epic’s Joshua Davis and Arthur Spector, while Epic co-founder Joshuah Bearman is set to executive produce the film.
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“The Blumhouse team was enthralled by the original article and Daniel’s deep reporting around such a terrifying and heartbreaking story,” Blum said in a statement. “Ever since I first watched Tiger’s Are Not Afraid, I have wanted to find a project to collaborate on with Issa and I knew this was a perfect fit. I can’t wait for audiences to see her take on this material.“
Epic was originally founded by journalists Davis and Bearman in 2013 with a drive to publish extraordinary true stories and has seen over 40 articles optioned by Hollywood, including the Ben Affleck directed and starring Argo, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, as well as AppleTV+’s, which is currently developing its second season.
“Epic spent years tracking down former students, government officials and teachers to try to understand what happened at Girlstown,” Davis said in a statement. “We learned that isolation can protect us from physical threats but our internal demons follow us wherever we go.“
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
