Memento bites into Jim Mickle's We Are What We Are remake

Stake Land director Jim Mickle is set to sink his teeth into a remake of cult cannibal picture We What We Are, Paris-based Memento Films International (MFI) has announced.

Mickle will transpose Mexican director Jorge Michel Grau’s picture about a family of cannibals from its original setting of Mexico City, to a poor part of the Catskills region in New York State. Principal photography starts in June.

“It’s a cool challenge to do justice to Jorge’s story, but also explore things from an unexpected angle,” said Mickle, who is writing the script with Nick Damici.

Michel Grau added: “I feel fortunate to have someone with the vision and talent Jim has to re-interpret my work. It is extraordinary to have a team of filmmakers so respectful of the spirit of a film and take such good care of its essence. I’m so proud to know We Are What We Are will be reworked under that kind of intelligent frame of mind. Very happy that Jim will construct a new universe over the bases of mine”

Mickle’s vampire picture Stake Land won Toronto’s Midnight Madness sidebar in 2010 and was picked up in a number of territories including the U.S. (IFC) and Britain (Metrodome).

Andrew Corkin of New York-based Uncorked Productions (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Afterschool) and Bolivian director/producer Rodrigo Bellott (Sexual Dependency) are producing alongside MFI’s Nicholas Shumaker and Linda Moran and Rene Bastian of Belladonna Productions, who produced Mickle’s first two films.

The film’s development was financed by fledgling finance company The Zoo, founded by Brett Fitzgerald, Moe Noorali, and industry veteran Jack Turner.