In town for the 6th Beijing International Film Festival, Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman told reporters that she is positive her directorial debut "A Tale of Love and Darkness" will interest Chinese audience.
Portman walked the red carpet at the opening of the festival, along with other big names in the movie industry such as filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore, actor Christoph Waltz and animator Raman Hui. She grabbed the opportunity to promote her new film, which also marks her first attempt at directing.
Based on the bestselling autobiographical novel by Amos Oz, "A Tale of Love and Darkness" is set amid a war-torn Israel where the young Oz deals with the interrelations of adolescence, family tragedies and the changing milieu. Portman, who wrote the movie's screenplay, plays Oz's mother.
The "Black Swan" actress started filming the movie in early 2014. U.K.-based website The Independent reported that Portman's original plan was to cast an Israeli actress to play Oz's mother.
"They were like 'you've never made a film, it's not commercial and you want to use someone that no one has ever heard of,'" Portman was quoted as saying by The Independent.
The film, which took eight years in planning, also required the actress to re-learn Hebrew. Portman told The Independent that the accent and grammar were a huge challenge.
The award-winning star's strong connection to Oz's story traces back to her Jewish upbringing.
Born in Jerusalem, Portman migrated to the U.S. along with her parents when she was only 3 years old. She went to U.S.-based Jewish schools, where she learned about the beginning of Israel and the impact of the Holocaust.
"It is essentially an immigrant story, moving to a place you idealize from afar, then when you get there, idealizing the place you came from, which is quite a universal immigrant experience," Portman told the Entertainment Weekly.