Ennio Morricone: Oscar winner to score Edith Stein Holocaust biopic A Rose in Winter

At the age of 87, following a nearly 60-year career in the entertainment industry, composer Ennio Morricone won his first competitive Oscar in February for scoring Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, and now the Italian legend has found his next musical project: creating the soundtrack for the upcoming Holocaust biopic A Rose in Winter.

Keller Edde Studios announced Sunday at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival that Joshua Sinclair (Gigolo, Judgment in Berlin) will write, direct, and producethe film, a Holocaust biopic revolving around Edith Stein, the only Jewish patron saint of Europe, who was killed by Nazis at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942 after fighting for women’s rights and gender equality in Germany. According to a press release, the film will tell Edith’s story from the perspective of a New York Times journalist, Michael Rosten, in the 1960s.

In addition to Morricone, three-time Oscar winner and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor, Apocalypse Now, Reds) will shoot the film, which is being produced by George Edde, Max Keller, and Micheline Keller. In addition to The Hateful Eight, Morricone has contributed music to other notable motion pictures over the years, including Cinema Paradiso, Bugsy, Once Upon a Time in America, and In the Line of Fire.

“This film sheds light on the story of an exceptional woman whose courage and tenacity demonstrated the interdependence of religions in the shaping of the Western world. This Judeo-Christian interdependence is extremely important in defining and preserving the identity of a Western world that is toying, once again, with the beast of anti-Semitism,” Sinclair said of the project via press release. “Very few people understand the greater significance of Edith Stein’s journey, and I feel compelled to make sure we all know more about her and what she stood for through this project.”

Further details on A Rose in Winter, including a release date and cast, have yet to be released.