American Zoetrope announced today that it has acquired the motion picture rights for Alysia Abbott’s critically acclaimed memoir, FAIRYLAND: A Memoir of My Father (W. W. Norton & Company). Sofia Coppola (LOST IN TRANSLATION, THE BLING RING) and Roman Coppola (THE DARJEELING LIMITED, MOONRISE KINGDOM) will produce the film. Ms. Coppola and Andrew Durham will co-write the screenplay. Mr. Durham is a photographer who collaborates regularly with Ms. Coppola.
Praised by Alexandra Styron in The New York Times as “a daughter's compassionate, clear-eyed reckoning with the truths that defined her singular girlhood,” FAIRYLAND is a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s vibrant cultural scene in the 1970s and ’80s, both before and after the AIDS epidemic, a crisis that would later claim the life of Abbott's father, Steve Abbott, a widowed poet and gay activist.
“I love the book Fairyland; it’s a sweet and unique love story of a girl and her dad, both growing up together in 1970's San Francisco. I think it will make an engaging and touching movie on a subject I've never seen before,” said Ms. Coppola.
Alysia Abbott said, “I’m delighted that Sofia Coppola and Zoetrope are going to create the film version of Fairyland. Sofia’s understanding of the feminine perspective and the artistic vision that she shares with Andrew Durham make them ideal partners to make this movie. I could not be happier.”
Published by W. W. Norton & Company in June, FAIRYLAND was featured on NPR's “Fresh Air,” and was further extolled in The New Yorker as a memoir that “doubles as a portrait of a city and a community at a crucial point in history… [Abbott] remembers playing dress-up with her father’s flamboyant friends, learning about sex and gender without a mother, being immersed in art and creativity, and, finally, watching as the AIDS epidemic decimated the life she knew.”
The author was represented by Brandy Rivers at The Gersh Agency, David Davoli of Davoli Law Firm, and David Patterson at Foundry Literary + Media. Zoetrope was represented by ICM Partners and attorneys Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum Matlof + Fishman.
