HBO's The Last of Us TV series has added two more directors to its roster.
Per Variety, the show has recruited filmmakers Jasmila Žbanić and Ali Abbasi to helm episodes in Season 1. The Last of Us' pilot will be directed by Kantemir Balagov, who replaced Johan Renck after the latter was forced to bow out due to a scheduling conflict. Production is set to begin in Calgary on July 5, as reported by CBC News.
Like Balagov, Žbanić and Abbasi are non-U.S. filmmakers whose previous work earned them much in the way of critical acclaim. Case in point, Žbanić's most recent film, the Srebrenica genocide drama Quo Vadis, Aida?, is nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 2021 Academy Awards ceremony. Set in Bosnia circa 1995, the film follows Aida Selmanagic, a United Nations translator who's faced with a life-or-death situation when the Serbian army takes control of her small town, leaving its residents -- her family included -- to seek shelter with the UN.
Born in Iran, Abbasi made his feature directing debut with 2016's Shelly, a horror/thriller about a Danish couple who hire a young Romanian woman to act as a surrogate mother for them, only for things to take a turn for the sinister. The film secured a nod for the Best First Feature Award following its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. Abbasi also won the Un Certain Regard Award at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for helming Border AKA Gräns, a Swedish dark fantasy/crime drama about a customs officer who has the ability to smell human emotions.
The synopsis for the series reads,
Based on the critically acclaimed video game The Last of Us, developed by Naughty Dog exclusively for the PlayStation® platforms, the story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
Written by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, HBO's The Last of Us is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television and stars Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Pedro Pascal as Joel and Gabriel Luna as Tommy. Director Kantemir Balagov will be helming the series' pilot episode.
Source: Variety