After bringing us Birds of Prey and in advance of her 2018 debut feature Dead Pigs finally coming to the U.S., Cathy Yan’s next film has been announced. Based on a short story by Rachel Khong, whose novel Goodbye, Vitamin is in the works and set to star Constance Wu, The Freshening is a sci-fi love story. Yan will write and direct the film, which will be co-produced by comedian Ali Wong.
Per Variety, here’s the deal:
“Khong’s short story is set in a near future where tensions over race and gender have reached a violent extreme, the U.S. government institutes a public health initiative known as ‘The Freshening’: every American receives an injection, after which everyone only sees others as the same race and gender as themselves. But when a street drug hits the scene, promising a chance to see the world as it really is, will she choose to disrupt this ‘freshened’ world?”
In the words of Sifl and Olly, it sounds crescent fresh.
FilmNation is financing the film; the studio also brought us Promising Young Woman and Arrival.
“The Freshening is exactly the type of daring and timely film that excites me as a writer and director, and that Ash and I started Rewild to produce,” Yan told Variety. “I’m delighted to get to work with like-minded collaborators Ali Wong, Hyperobject and FilmNation to bring this bold and impactful story to the screen.”
According to Wong, it was her “dream for Cathy Yan to write and direct this project and I’m so incredibly grateful it came true.”