Oscar Winner Brandon Oldenburg Helming Animated Feature ‘Mouschi’ Based On Children’s Book ‘The Cat Who Lived With Anne Frank’

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Brandon Oldenburg (The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore) will make his feature animation directing debut on Mouschi: The Cat Who Lived with Anne Frank — a new film based on the children’s book The Cat Who Lived with Anne Frank by David Lee Miller (My Suicide) and Steven Jay Rubin (Silent Night).

Billed as The Lion King meets Inglorious Basterds, Mouschi is a work of fantastical, historical fiction, reimagining the cat who lived with Anne Frank as an Amsterdam swashbuckler who becomes a freedom fighting hero of the Dutch Animal Resistance. (Snuck into the famed Secret Annex by teenager Peter Van Pels, a cat named Mouschi really did live in hiding with Anne Frank. Anne wrote about Mouschi frequently in her red-checkered diary, which she named Kitty.)

More from Deadline

• Oscar-Winning 'The Sting' Scribe David S. Ward Boards Audie Murphy Limited Series - Update

• 'Hollywood Hillbillies' Reality Series Star 'Mema,' AKA Dolores Hughes, Dies At 76

• 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' Roars To $330M Global Start; Edges Original Pic's Overseas Bow With $150M - International Box Office

The Penguin imprint Philomel published the book with illustrations by Elizabeth Baddeley in 2019. Miller and Rubin penned the screenplay for the upcoming film adaptation, with the former also to serve as co-director. Multiple Independent Spirit Award nominee Patrick Cunningham (Spell, Martha Marcy May Marlene) is producing, with Rubin and Christa Lang Fuller serving as executive producers. Pic is being made with consultation and guidance from the Jewish human rights organization, Simon Wiesenthal Center, which also hosted the book’s launch at their Museum of Tolerance on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Portions of the movie’s profits will support the SWC.

“This is an exciting action/adventure story chock-full of entertainment value that will intrigue audiences from 8 to 80. It’s also a very timely film,” said producer Patrick Cunningham. “Stories like this unite everyone. With the rise of anti-Semitism around the world, it’s time to remind audiences that the Nazis are the bad guys, based on actual history, not white supremacist fantasy.”

Oldenburg is a director, illustrator, designer and immersive storyteller who in 2012 won an Oscar for the animated short The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, sharing the prize with writer and co-director William Joyce. The multi-hyphenate has also won multiple Daytime Emmys and Cannes Golden Lions, among other accolades. As Chief Creative Officer of Flight School Studio, he leads a team of creative directors and artists producing innovative stories with new technologies. Prior to Flight School, Brandon co-founded Reel FX and Moonbot Studios, both leaders in animation and emerging technology.

Miller previously wrote, directed and produced My Suicide, a teen dramedy that won the Crystal Bear for Best Feature at the Berlin Film Festival, among many other accolades. He is currently writing a feature about child sex trafficking for producer Sean Wheeler.

Rubin exec produced My Suicide and also produced Silent Night, a WWII drama for Hallmark Channel that was nominated by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television for four Gemini Awards.

Miller is repped by CAA, Good Humor Literary Management and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols; Rubin by Good Humor Literary Management.

Best of Deadline

• Movies With Lowest Budgets To Earn $1 Million, From ‘Clerks’ And ‘The Blair Witch Project' To ‘Eraserhead’ & More - Photo Gallery

• Shelley Duvall Career In Film Gallery: From ‘The Shining’, ‘Three Women’, ‘Annie Hall’ & More

• Jerry Lee Lewis: A Career In Photos Gallery

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.