EXCLUSIVE: Taissa Farmiga (The Gilded Age) will exec produce and star in the Ukrainian drama Anna, from producer Uri Singer (White Noise).
The film written and to be directed by Dekel Berenson is inspired by his same-name 2019 short, which premiered in competition at Cannes before going on to screen at TIFF and other major festivals. It’s a contemporary coming-of-age drama that follows Anna (Farmiga), a Ukrainian immigrant who is training to become a sergeant in the U.S. Army. After weeks at the military base, and as the Russian forces prepare to invade her home country, she’s sexually assaulted by another army officer. After returning to the base, she struggles to complete her course as she reconsiders her values, identity and place in an American army and society that’s not fighting for her, too.
Farmiga is a Ukrainian-American actress best known on the film side for her work in New Line’s horror The Nun, having also appeared in such titles as the Clint Eastwood-directed The Mule, and the Sundance-premiering What They Had with Michael Shannon and Hilary Swank. The actress most recently starred alongside Michael C. Hall in the Pascual Sisto indie John and the Hole, which premiered at Sundance 2021. She’ll next be seen in the second season of Julian Fellowes’ HBO series The Gilded Age, as well as The Nun 2.
Farmiga is represented by CAA, Anonymous Content and Peikoff Mahan Law Office;