FilmNation is handling international sales on Deepa Mehta’s screen adaptation of the acclaimed Salman Rushdie novel Midnight’s Children and has closed deals with eOne in the UK and UGC in France.

Shooting on the Canada-UK project about the post-colonial partition of India is ready to commence in January 2011 in Sri Lanka.

Much of the Indian cast is in place and the producers are out to casting on several key roles.

Mehta and Salman Rushdie have been collaborating on the script for the past two years. Rushdie said he jumped at the chance to work with the director because “her work has great beauty, and I always follow the passion.”

The Booker Prize winning novel was published in 1981 and recently beat 41 other Booker winners to earn the title of the greatest winner of them all.

Midnight’s Children allegory recounts the tumultuous saga of twins born in 1947 on the cusp of Indian independence who are able to communicate telepathically with others born at the same time.

David Hamilton is producing and Echo Lake Entertainment’s Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding serve as executive producers alongside Steven Silver and Neil Tabatznik of Blue Ice Entertainment.

“At once epic, comic and magical, Midnight’s Children conjures images and characters as rich and unforgettable as India herself,” FilmNation CEO Glen Basner said. “It’s a wonderful project and we are humbled that we have been chosen to represent it.”

“I am intrigued by epic stories with complex people who have many layers and secrets, and tricks up their sleeves,” Mehta said. “This great novel of Rushdieʼs is one of the most famous examples of this kind of generous storytelling, and had an instantaneous appeal for me.”

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