Norio Tsurata lines up Cursed Diary

Geneon Entertainment and Capture The Flag Films have announced a Japan-France co-production on Premonition director Norio Tsuruta’s upcoming The Cursed Diary.

Currently in pre-production, the Japanese-language supernatural mystery is scheduled to start shooting in June in the Tokyo area. With screenplay written by Junya Kato (The Complex), the film’s budgeted at around $5m.

Erika Toda from Death Note will play the lead Reiko, a reporter who returns from Paris to Tokyo to investigate her parents’ strange brutal deaths. French model Theo Gauchet will play her successful actor boyfriend. They will be joined by Lisa Ulliel (Saint Laurent) and Mina Asakura.

Geneon (Premonition) and Capture the Flag Films (The Horde) are producing while Twins Japan is co-producing.

Mikihiko Hirata (Marebito) and Marcel Giroux (Martyrs) are attached as producers. Mandarin Films’ Isabelle Grellat is attached as executive producer.

Films Distribution will handle sales and Toho will distribute the film in Japan.

The film tells the story of Reiko, who lost her best friend, a popular French girl, in a mysterious death at their Tokyo high school. She’s living in Paris with actor Maxime when she hears of her parents’ brutal death in a strange plane crash.

Returning to Tokyo to find out what happened, she discovers a hidden apartment with a strange diary. An evil entity has been unleashed.