Oscar Nominee Uli Edel to Direct ‘Shadow Song’

Uli Edel will direct “Shadow Song,” the story of the bond between a Chinese music student and his Jewish classmate.

The film is a feature-length version of the 2017 short “A Children’s Song” and boasts a screenplay by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs (“Chocolat”). Edel is an Academy Award and Emmy Award-nominated filmmaker who previously directed “The Baader Meinhof Complex” and “Houdini.”

The feature film will be produced by Sid Ganis and Nancy Hult Ganis at Out of the Blue Entertainment, and The H Collective’s Kent Jianhui Huang and Mark Rau, who was recently named CEO of THC Germany. Ganis, who is on the board of THC, produced “A Children’s Song,” which won top awards at more than 20 film festivals worldwide.

“Shadow Song” was inspired by a true story and is set in contemporary times with flashbacks to World War II. It follows two music students who meet while attending a U.S. school, where they are asked to perform an unpublished piece for their academic requirements. They soon discover that they are playing the same song. As they both race to prove ownership, they uncover family secrets leading back to a long-lost, shared history in Shanghai when the Chinese provided the only safe haven left for over 20,000 Jews fleeing Hitler’s oppression in Europe.

Edel is a German director whose credits include “Last Exit to Brooklyn” and “Body of Evidence.” “Baader Meinhof Complex” was nominated for an Academy Award in 2008 for foreign film, and he earned an Emmy nomination in 2015 for directing for a limited series, movie or dramatic special for “Houdini.” He also directed the TV films “Tyson,” “Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny” and “The Mists of Avalon.”

Edel is represented by The Gersh Agency.

The H Collective recently announced their next film, “The Vineyard,” a coming-of-age pic penned by Tory Kamen and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Filming will commence next year in Italy.