Conquering Lion Pictures have acquired the film rights to Behind You by Catherine Hernandez.
Behind You, released on May 5, 2024, follows the story of Alma, a film editor for a corny true crime series. At a glance, her life with her wife and teenage son seems comfortable and safe. But when Infamous' latest episode features the Scarborough Stalker — who terrorized Alma's own neighborhood when she was a girl — Alma is consumed by her long-suppressed past. In present day, she must reckon with her understanding of consent to stop her young son from making terrible choices toward his own girlfriend. Unfolding in two timelines, Behind You challenges and dissects rape culture and champions one girl's resilience into adulthood.
"I have a love/hate relationship with true crime," said Hernandez in an email. "The usual structure goes like this: misogyny shapes the killer, fragile masculinity leads to shoddy investigations, rape culture blames victims/tells those targeted to do better job of saving themselves, when killer is caught the patriarchy says, 'we saved you, you're welcome.'"
"What some may call enthralling entertainment is what I call an enraging pattern. And having moved to Scarborough the same year a serial killer began attacking women and girls, I decided to write a book that challenged us to halt these cataclysmic cycles of harm."
Hernandez is a Canadian writer, author and playwright. Her 2017 novel, Scarborough, was a shortlisted finalist for the 2017 Toronto Book Award, the 2018 Trillium Book Award, the 2018 Edmund White Award and was on Canada Reads 2022 defended by actress Malia Baker.
Scarborough was also adapted to screen as a feature film and premiered at TIFF in 2021. Her other books include The Story of Us, Crosshairs and the children's books I Promise, M is for Mustache and Where Do Your Feelings Live?.
Conquering Lion Pictures, co-founded by Damon D'Oliveira and Clement Virgo, is known for its adaptations of Canada Reads books Brother by David Chariandy and The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill.
"I am beside myself with excitement for the future of this project," said Hernandez, who is writing the screen play for the film version of Behind You. "I have been dreaming of the day I could create alongside Conquering Lion Pictures ever since I watched the adaptation of Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes."
Hernandez is most excited about the opportunity to subvert the way true crime stories are told.
"I wrote the first draft of the screenplay and the final drafts of the novel simultaneously with the same intention: to pull focus from perpetrators to survivors and victims," she said.
"This fictional story exploring the impact of a fictional serial killer on generations of people is not about perpetrators. It's about us. This simple act of redirection allows us to examine the insidiousness of rape culture, explore society's complicity in sexual harm and all the ways we allow history to repeat itself."
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/books/toronto-author-catherine-hernandez-s-latest-novel-behind-you-optioned-for-film-and-television-1.7193315