According to Variety, Naomi Watts (The Impossible), Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us), Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) and Odessa Young (Mothering Sunday) are set to play leading roles in the upcoming thriller drama titled Harmonia.
Watts will be portraying a mother who leaves her family after getting involved in an all-female cult run by a charismatic leader, played by Krieps. Meanwhile, Ramsey and Young are playing Watts’ daughters. Production is slated to begin this fall.
“Set in the 1980s, Rita is entranced by the mesmeric leader and renounces her family to embrace the world of the enigmatic Harmonia commune,” reads the synopsis. “Her daughters, Ella, and Jo, put everything on the line to infiltrate the cult and bring their mother back home. Yet, once immersed in the commune, they find themselves inexorably drawn into the leader’s labyrinthine web of psycho-spiritual manipulation.”
Harmonia is Based on a Real-Life Story
Harmonia will be directed by Guy Nattiv from a screenplay he co-wrote with Noa Berman-Herzberg, based on real-life events involving Nattiv’s grandmother who joined an insidious cult back in the 1980s. The film will be produced by Julia Lebedev, Eddie Vaisman, Jaime Ray Newman and Oren Moverman. It is a production by Embankment Films, Sight Unseen, and New Native Pictures.
“I have been waiting decades until I was emotionally ready to confront my beloved grandmother’s story, which has haunted my family since I was a child. As a woman in the 1980s going through a midlife crisis, my grandmother made the radical choice to leave my family and embed herself in an all-female cult, in an obsessive pursuit of happiness and meaning,” Nattiv said in a statement.
He continued, “The core of this movie is today’s very real, beguiling, and profligate threat of coercion and manipulation by any cult of dominant personality. I am honored to collaborate on my most personal film with the brilliant Naomi, Vicky, Bella and Odessa, who will bring their extraordinary talents to the terrifying and unique world of Harmonia.”
