Upcoming film ‘Blindness’

Blindness is an upcoming 2008 dramatic thriller film that is an adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by José Saramago about a society suffering an epidemic of blindness. The film is written by Don McKellar and directed by Fernando Meirelles with Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo as the stars. The novel's author originally refused to sell rights for a film adaptation, not wanting it to fall into the wrong hands. Meirelles was able to acquire rights with the condition that the film would be set in an unrecognizable city. The director chose São Paulo as the primary backdrop for Blindness, though scenes were also filmed in Ontario, Canada and Montevideo, Uruguay. With all the characters aside from Julianne Moore's character being blind, the cast was trained to simulate blindness. Meirelles also stylized the film to reflect the lack of point-of-view that the characters would experience. Blindness premiered as the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2008, and the film is commercially scheduled for limited release in the United States on September 12, 2008.