Wim Wenders and Orian Williams (“Control,” “Shadow of the Vampire”) are executive producing an upcoming feature from debut director Michał Chmielewski based on the mysterious disappearance of Connie Converse, the singer-songwriter who vanished without a trace in 1974.
“Roving Woman” is produced by Marta Lewandowska (“Erotica 2022”) of Friends With Benefits and Lena Góra, who also stars alongside Academy Award nominee John Hawkes (“Winter’s Bone”) and Chris Hanley, the producer behind “Spring Breakers” and “American Psycho.” Shot in the U.S. during the pandemic, the film is currently in post-production.
Converse came of age in the Greenwich Village music scene of the 1950s, but gradually grew disillusioned with her life. One day in 1974, she packed her possessions into a Volkswagen Beetle and left New York, never to be seen or heard from again.
“Our film is a study of man as an individual seeking their place in the world, their identity. A person who doesn’t have a family or a place to call home and who one day additionally loses all their material possessions,” Chmielewski said in a director’s statement.
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“Traveling always brings hope for change, new land, new beginning,” he continued, citing as inspiration the road movies of Wenders, David Lynch, Dennis Hopper and Gus Van Sant. “In motion one develops faster, finds new inspirations, solutions and distance from oneself and one’s issues, [while] learning not to take yourself so seriously.”
Lewandowska produced the Sundance award winner “Dolce Fine Gornata” and the first Polish Netflix Original, the female-led omnibus “Erotica 2022.” She’s currently developing a film adaptation of the novel “Flights,” from Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk, and is one of five Polish producers presenting projects at the Cannes Film Market’s Producers Network.