Since breaking out with her acclaimed horror film The Babadook, Jennifer Kent has quickly established herself as a director to watch. While she's kept pretty quiet about what future projects await, we know that one of them will be the tragic true love story, Alice + Freda Forever.
Based on the non-fiction book by Alexis Coe, which included exhaustive research using over 100 love letters, the story recounts the doomed same-sex love affair between Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward in 1892 Memphis, TN. When the love letters were discovered, the girls were forbidden to see one another. Alice was heartbroken but Freda quickly adjusted to the situation, which drove Alice into a murderous act that became a national scandal.
Kent will adapt the screenplay herself, and given how she was able to flesh out her characters so thoroughly in The Babadook, in a genre that doesn't necessarily demand it, we should expect her to do no less here.
