See star Nesta Cooper is tackling more than one role for her next project. The actress will star in and make her screenwriting debut with MEM, a film based on the 2016 debut novel by Bethany C. Morrow (A Song Below Water).
The Hollywood Reporter quotes Cooper as saying, in a statement, “I’m really grateful to be able to collaborate with a writer as prolific as Bethany. … Despite the profound and oftentimes horror-like themes in her work, her voice offers an indescribable comfort. Her stories are so deep and full of life that they immerse you completely in their world.”
MEM is set in the past of a world mostly like ours, except that a Montreal scientist discovered a method for removing memories from a person’s mind; the extracted Mem then becomes a sort of creature that exists on its own for a brief while. The summary explains:
Set in the glittering art deco world of a century ago, MEM makes one slight alteration to history: a scientist in Montreal discovers a method allowing people to have their memories extracted from their minds, whole and complete.
The Mems exist as mirror-images of their source — zombie-like creatures destined to experience that singular memory over and over, until they expire in the cavernous Vault where they are kept. And then there is Dolores Extract #1, the first Mem capable of creating her own memories. An ageless beauty shrouded in mystery, she is allowed to live on her own, and create her own existence, until one day she is summoned back to the Vault.
What happens next is a gorgeously rendered, heart-breaking novel in the vein of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Debut novelist Bethany Morrow has created an allegory for our own time, exploring profound questions of ownership, and how they relate to identity, memory and history, all in the shadows of Montreal’s now forgotten slave trade.
MEM has a lot of fans, including Kelly Link, who said, “An extraordinary and utterly compelling novel that deftly explores questions of memory, identity, and humanity while also introducing one of my favourite characters in a long time. I loved everything about MEM.”
Cooper and Morrow are executive producing the adaptation, which is set to begin filming in Montreal next year. In the meantime, you can read an excerpt of the novel here.
