Filmmaker Marielle Heller has had a pretty great couple of years. After her 2018 film, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” scored multiple awards, including three Oscar nominations, the director returned last year with “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” which again saw her in the Oscars discussion, with a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Tom Hanks. Heller is hoping to keep this successful streak alive with her upcoming project, a new limited series titled “Five Women.”
According to Deadline, Heller will direct the just-announced limited series, “Five Women,” which follows the story of several women all linked by a serial sexual harasser. The series is based on a story presented by NPR’s “This American Life” and doesn’t just tell the stories of the title women, but it also dives into their pasts to see how these women grew up and how that might have affected their response to the abuse.
Robin Schwartz, Peter Saraf, Marc Turtletaub, Alissa Shipp, Ira Glass and Joffe-Walt will executive produce alongside the filmmaker, who is reteaming with Big Beach, the studio that helped produce the aforementioned ‘Beautiful Day.’
Though there’s no cast or writer secured for the limited series, Heller is aboard as the director, as well as the showrunner. So, she’ll be the one to oversee the creation of the series from the ground up.
Recently, Heller found herself as one of the several women at the center of a recent debate over the Oscars’ lack of female filmmakers in the Best Director category. Just as it was in 2018, the filmmaker’s name was brought up as a qualified director that was somehow snubbed for the coveted nomination, despite turning in work that was recognized by the Academy in other categories.
It’s not clear when production would begin on “Five Women.” However, it does seem as if this will be the next project for the filmmaker.