Judi to star in new Stephen Frears film, Philomena
Judi Dench and Steve Coogan are to star in a film about a mothers painstaking search for the son she was forced, by the Catholic Church, to sell to rich Americans.
Its a real-life tale of heartbreak, bigotry and religious cruelty.
The film, called Philomena, is based on a book researched and written by Martin Sixsmith, a former BBC TV foreign correspondent and government communications director.
Eight years ago, Sixsmith was introduced to a woman called Philomena Lee. Philomena had recently revealed to her family that, in 1952, when she was young and unmarried, she gave birth to a son at a mother-baby home run by Roman Catholic nuns at Roscrea in north Tipperary.
Three years later, the nuns forced Philomena, who was still shunned by her family, to hand over the boy she named Anthony, so they could peddle him to a wealthy American couple from Missouri.
Stephen Frears, one of Judi's favourite film-makers, will direct the picture in November on locations in London, Ireland and Washington DC.