Shubhabrata Dutta
One of David Bezmozgis’ acclaimed novels will be brought to the screens soon! The Cinemaholic can reveal that a feature film adaptation of the award-winning 2014 novel ‘The Betrayers’ is currently in development. Principal photography for the movie will start in Italy and Northern Ontario in May 2025. Bezmozgis penned the adapted screenplay.
The plot centers on the Soviet Jewish politician Baruch Kotler, who has garnered immense hatred and disgrace. After refusing to back down from a principled stand against the settlements in the West Bank, his political opponents expose his affair with a much younger mistress. The two then escape to his Crimean resort in Yalta, where he meets a former friend whose denunciation sent him to the Gulag almost 40 years ago. In the following 24 hours, Kotler faces the ultimate reckoning with those who have betrayed him and with those whom he has betrayed, the latter of which includes a teenage daughter, a son with a moral dilemma serving in the Israeli army, and a wife who once campaigned to secure his freedom and stood by him through the toughest of times.
Bezmozgis most recently co-wrote Tahir Rana and Éric Warin’s animated biographical drama ‘Charlotte,’ chronicling the life of the German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon before she was sent to Auschwitz during World War II. He also wrote and directed ‘Natasha,’ which centers on a taboo affair between a Russian Jewish teenager and his even younger cousin, and the coming-of-age movie ‘Victoria Day,’ following the experiences of a sixteen-year-old boy in 1980s Toronto.
‘The Betrayers’ has won the National Jewish Book Award and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. Bezmozgis’ other accolades include the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the City of Toronto Book Award. He was also named one of the “Top 20 Fiction Writers Under the Age of 40” by The New Yorker in 2010.
Italy previously hosted the production of the papal thriller ‘Conclave’ and the Apple TV+ series ‘Disclaimer.’ Ontario serves as the primary filming location for Prime Video’s ‘Reacher’ and ‘The Boys.’
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