Cedric Jimenez to Direct ‘Verde,’ About Ingrid Betancourt and Clara Rojas’ Captivity in Colombian Jungle (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentHot French helmer Cedric Jimenez, whose latest hit movie “The Stronghold” is nominated for seven Cesar awards, is developing “Verde,” an epic adventure drama revolving around the kidnapping of former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and her campaign manager Clara Rojas, who were held captive in the jungle for seven years.Inspired by a true story like all of Jimenez’s films, “Verde” opens in 2002, when Betancourt — a high-profile French-Colombian senator who was running for president and had vowed to end political corruption — was brutally kidnapped with her campaign manager, Rojas, by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The pair were held hostage by the rebel group in the hostile jungle for nearly a decade, along with many other victims of Colombia’s civil war.

Jimenez is writing the script for “Verde” with Olivier Demangel, the co-screenwriter of Mati Diop’s Cannes’ grand prize winner “Atlantics” and Jimenez’s upcoming movie “November,” a tense action thriller following a secretive police brigade that tracks down the instigators of the 2015 Paris terror attacks.Budgeted in the $20 million range, the international project has already been boarded by Studiocanal (“Paddington”) and is being jointly produced by Legende Films’ Alain Goldman, whose credits include Oscar-winning “La Vie en Rose,” as well as Chi-Fou-Mi’s Hugo Selignac, who has delivered a flurry of recent French box office successes like “The Stronghold” which bowed at Cannes, topped Netflix charts, sold more than 2.2 million tickets in French theaters and was shortlisted by France’s Oscar committee.