First Stills From Besson’s The Lady

Following the recent surprise news that Luc Besson has been at work on a film about the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, comes some more information and a few stills, courtesy of the Guardian. The Lady** stars Michelle Yeoh as Suu Kyi, and David Thewlis as her husband, the academic Michael Aris.

Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest in Rangoon, after her National League For Democracy won 60% of the vote against the Burmese military Junta in the 1990 general election, but the results were declared void. She was awarded the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought in 1990, and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, but was only, finally, released last month. She is known as The Lady by the Burmese population, since mention of her actual name is forbidden.

The film doesn't cover her whole story, but takes in the years between 1988 and 1999; the narrative arc of Rebecca Frayn's screenplay begins with Suu Kyi leaving Oxford to visit her sick mother in Burma and staying, and ends at the point where Suu Kyi is faced with the choice between her country and the cancer-stricken Aris, who was denied entry to Burma. Producer Andy Harries says "It's a fantastic love story... a lot of which is not known."

While the film doesn't strictly have Suu Kyi's permission, Harries was determined that the film should be "right". "Hers is a powerful and important story," he says. "She has not had the publicity that, say, Mandela had, but her situation is remarkably similar. She is one of those extraordinary people driven by principle who are determined to bring about change peacefully."

Besson calls Suu Kyi "more of a heroine than Joan of Arc," and called her cause "the fight of a woman without any weapons but kindness. She is very Gandhi-like. How often in history do you have a person, a woman, who never curses, never steals anything, never does anything illegal and you put her under house arrest for 24 years? It is just insane."

Some shooting has already taken place in Thailand, and the production should finish in Oxford in three weeks' time. The Lady should appear in cinemas next Autumn, but in the meantime, the first images are online here.