Robert Pat­tin­son is star­ring in Joan­na Hogg’s next film

Joan­na Hogg has assem­bled quite the team for her next project, a two-part fea­ture titled The Sou­venir. Robert Pat­tin­son, Tom Burke, Ari­ane Labed and Richard Ayoade are all on board, with Mar­tin Scors­ese signed on to exec­u­tive produce.

The Arch­i­pel­ago and Exhi­bi­tion writer/director’s lat­est is a roman­tic mys­tery which spans the 1980s. It tells the sto­ry of a young film stu­dent (Labed) grap­pling with her first love affair. She must attempt to dis­en­tan­gle fact from fic­tion in a rela­tion­ship with a com­pli­cat­ed and untrust­wor­thy man, played by Burke.

“This sto­ry has been in my head for a few years,” Hogg told Screen Inter­na­tion­al. ​“After Exhi­bi­tion, I talked to Mar­tin about what I should do next. I had two ideas: one was a ghost sto­ry. The oth­er was this one. I start from auto­bi­og­ra­phy. When I inves­ti­gate a sto­ry I realise what I don’t remem­ber and the demands of fic­tion take over: that’s the fun part. Real­i­ty and fic­tion are so jum­bled up. That blur­ring is part­ly what I’m explor­ing in this story.”

Scors­ese also explained why sup­port­ing small­er inde­pen­dent projects is such a pas­sion of his. ​“A sin­gu­lar voice is impor­tant. Much of that is com­ing out of Eng­land. I’ve always been very influ­enced by British films. I find that so many inter­est­ing film­mak­ers are work­ing at a low pro­duc­tion scale there. That gives you free­dom. But you still need mon­ey and sup­port to help devel­op the artist. The impor­tant thing is to con­tin­ue to sup­port the indi­vid­ual voice. That’s one of the rea­sons I like to speak up for that work.”

The Sou­venir is being devel­oped with the BFI and backed by BBC Films with the first part expect­ed to shoot this sum­mer, and the sec­ond shoot­ing in sum­mer 2018.

Tweet us @LWLies to let us know your thoughts on Hogg’s fol­low-up to Exhibition.