The Eve’s Bayou director will both adapt and direct the feature film version of Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat. Kasi Lemmons is scheduled to finish the screenplay by next month, the producers announced today. UK-based Patrick Holzen, Debbie Vandermeulen and Crash producer Mark R. Harris will produce the adaptation of the acclaimed 2010 South African novel. South Africa’s Do Productions will co-produce. Spanning the 1950s to the 1990s, the story is set in Apartheid ruled South Africa where a black maid slowly takes over the running of her adopted white parents/employers farm. Lemmons is who is next set to direct Black Nativity for Fox Searchlight and to adapt Zadie Smith’s novel On Beauty. Lemmons is represented by the Gersh Agency and Wet Dog Entertainment.
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.


Such a great book, but I’m not sure that Kasi, God love her, is the person for the job. “Eve’s Bayou” had its heart in the right place, but was earnest and clunky in ways that would so terribly disserve “Agaat.” Could she maybe exec produce but find another writer/director?