Saskatchewan-based prodco Karma Film and Toronto, L.A., and New York-based Fae Pictures have boarded writer-director Maya Bastian’s (pictured) planned debut feature The Devil’s Tears.

The Tamil-Canadian horror is currently in development, with Toronto, Vancouver, and L.A.-based prodco Blackout Media already attached.

Blackout Media’s Karl Janisse, and Karma Film’s Anand Ramayya and Kelly Balon are slated to produce, while Shant Joshi, Lindsay Blair Goeldner, and Abdul Malik of Fae Pictures are attached as executive producers.

The project has received development funding from Creative Saskatchewan and it has been selected for the 1497 Features Lab in Malibu, which supports South Asian talent, and as a finalist for the Breaking Through the Lens’ Chopard x BTTL Action Grant, according to a news release. Production is expected to take place in 2025 and 2026 in India.

The filmmaking team for The Devil’s Tears is aiming for a budget of approximately $15 million by leveraging a coproduction model and sees the project as “a formidable competitor for arthouse festival audiences, South Indian commercial audiences, and global genre audiences,” said the release.

The film, to be led by an ensemble cast of Tamil actors, is set in a remote war-ravaged Sri Lankan jungle village where a red rain dismantles all societal order.

“Maya’s background in conflict journalism combined with her deep personal connections to the community have added layer upon layer of subtle complexities that fill this incredibly original script with the potential to be a truly groundbreaking film,” said Ramayya in a statement.

Joshi added: “The recent box office successes for distinct and unique writer-director voices like Gerwig, Nolan, Atlee, and Nelson, and the wave of sold out theatres for socially relevant arthouse cinema with a genre bent gives us confidence to face the market with a dynamic project like this.”

Image courtesy of Roundstone Communications