Pakistani-British actor and Oscar winner Riz Ahmed has been cast in Greek director Christos Nikou’s English-language feature debut “Fingernails”, Deadline has revealed. Ahmed will be joined by actress Jessie Buckley in a lead role.
Deadline described the film as a “grounded sci-fi love story”. It revolves around a test that has been discovered that measures whether couples are truly in love. Anna (Buckley) is skeptical of the positive result she has achieved with her longtime partner, so she begins working at a love institute as an assistant to Trevor (Ahmed), a mysterious and devoted instructor. .
The film is co-written by Nikou, along with Sam Steiner and Nikou’s pandemic “Apples” co-writer Stavros Raptis. It is produced by Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films with FilmNation Entertainment, which is launching sales of the film on the Cannes market. Jérôme Duboz will be the executive producer.
But it’s not the only film Ahmed is promoting at Cannes. The ‘Sound Of Metal’ actor is once again teaming up with his ‘The Long Goodbye’ director Aneil Karia for a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic ‘Hamlet’, which is being launched by WME Independent at the Cannes market, as the reported Deadline. Ahmed and Karia are in Cannes “to discuss the project with buyers during a presentation,” Deadline added.
Ahmed will play the role of Hamlet, a man haunted by the ghost of his father and driven to increasingly unstable heights. “The new take on the classic will see Hamlet roam London’s elite circles and attend rambunctious parties, going out of his way to avenge his father and prove his uncle’s guilt,” according to Deadline’s report.
The Indian-Pakistani Oscar duo told Deadline that this version of
“Hamlet” is about “race, privilege, corruption” and “belongs to a wealthy British Indian family who worked their way into the English establishment at great expense”. They described the film as “an urgent story told in a bold way that will grip audiences and won’t let go”. Noting that their goal is to bring “Hamlet” to life by placing it in our own community”, they said they “want to open this timeless story to a wider audience – with a diverse cast, contemporary London setting and in injecting a classic verse with the energy of rap, a genre we’ve both worked in a lot.
Ahmed won the 2022 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for ‘The Long Goodbye’. He co-wrote, produced and starred in the short film where he plays Rice, whose British-Pakistani family encounter far-right marchers with dire consequences. The 12-minute film shares its name with Ahmed’s 2020 album, which was inspired, in part, by the rise of far-right political groups and anti-immigration rhetoric in the post-Brexit UK. The film incorporates music from Ahmed’s album. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film, “which culminates in a searing monologue by Ahmed, is a terrifying look at a daily nightmare for members of certain marginalized communities.”
Last year, Ahmed made history by becoming the first Muslim to be nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for ‘Sound of Metal’. He was also nominated for a BAFTA and a SAG Award for the same film, and he won the Gotham Award and the Indie Spirit Award. He previously won an Emmy for HBO’s “The Night Of.”
Some of his future projects include “The Son of Good Fortune” at Amazon with Lulu Wang. The two will develop and produce the comedy series based on the novel of the same name by Lysley Tenorio, about an undocumented Filipino teenager in the Bay Area navigating a tumultuous relationship with his former movie star mother B, falling in love with the first times, and figure out how to pay off a huge debt before his whole life falls apart.
He is also working on a film adaptation of author Mosin Hamid’s best-selling novel, “Exit West,” directed by Yann Demange, which is being produced by the Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground Productions, The New York Times reported. early.
