The director of the movie, Cinema Paradiso, found the perfect protagonist for his first English language film. Suu Kyi was the leader of a pro-democracy movement in Burma, and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
According to Variety, Tornatore is presently working on the screenplay for the movie on Suu Kyi entitled The Lady. The movie producer Naofumi Okamoto stated that he gave Tornatore the directing role in this film because of his great empathy toward women.
Suu Kyi was arrested 17 years ago by Burmese authorities. The producer was able to meet her and convinced her to put her life in a movie. "We want to use the politics as the background to a story about a woman who chose to be the mother to a nation rather than the mother of a family", explained Okamoto.
This $30 million production will be starting later this year which will give Okamoto time to negotiate filming locations with the Burmese authorities.