A British film company has bought the film option for Turtschaninoff’s film Maresi – Inrikes – svenska.yle.fi

The film option for Maria Turchaninoff’s fantasy book Maresi has been sold to a British film company.

– At some point I think it would be good for his book to be translated into another language abroad. Suddenly it happened, plus ten other times. Everything became so much bigger than I dared to dream. For example, Great Britain and the United States bought three books at once, two of which at that time were completely unwritten. Marisi has been nominated for literary awards in Great Britain and now this film. “In a way, it’s like I don’t have enough time to participate in everything that’s going on,” Turchaninov says.

Film company Film4 has had previous success with Slumdog Millionaire and 12 Years a Slave – both of which won this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture.

– Hopefully there will be a movie at some point, the movie option has been sold. This means that the company has the exclusive right to develop the possibilities of producing a film based on the book, says Maria Turchaninov.

Turchaninov’s book Marisi also won the Finlandia Junior Prize in 2014 – and was shortlisted for the Nordic Council’s Children’s and Young People’s Literature Prize in 2015.

It’s strange that reality trumps all the dreams you dared to dream.

Maria Turchaninoff

Maresi takes place on a small island, where the Red Monastery is a refuge for persecuted and vulnerable girls and women and where 13-year-old Maresi has lived a peaceful life for four years. Then evil sweeps the island and you are forced to act.

The book received good reviews. Translation rights have been sold to 17 countries. How does it feel to be recognized internationally?

-It’s a strange feeling. I don’t feel that way in my daily life. I’m now focusing on working on the third book in this series. “But it’s strange that reality outweighs all the dreams I dared to have,” Maria says.

Maria Turchaninoff has been mentioned and reviewed in the international media, in newspapers such as The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Financial Times and The Guardian. The BBC also interviewed her on radio.

This is the first book in a very unusual fantasy trilogy, full of feminism, inner darkness, and intellectual questions.

Daily Mail newspaper

Change at 14.25: The headline has been changed from “An English film company has bought the film rights to Turtschaninoff’s Maresi” to “An English film company has bought the film option to Turtschaninoff’s Maresi”.
Changed at 19.10: ‘English’ and ‘England’ corrected to ‘Britain’ and ‘Great Britain’.