Lionsgate Hires First-Time Director for ‘Goodbye for Now’

Sandy Widyanata, a feature newcomer from Australia, has nabbed the directing gig for Goodbye for Now, Lionsgate’s adaptation of the book by Laurie Frankel.

The 2012 book told of a perpetually unlucky-in-love computer genius who creates a program that allows users to communicate electronically with their dead loved ones.

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Jessica Goldberg wrote the original script, but Jonathan Tropper, who wrote the novel as well as the script for the subsequent adaptation of This Is Where I Leave You, was just hired to do a rewrite. Temple Hill is producing.

Widyanata (UTA, Principato-Young Entertainment, Gang Tyre) is an Indonesian-born, German-raised Australian who attended the Australian Film Television & Radio School.

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A rare female helmer in the animation and CG scene, she won the Visual Effects Society Award in the student category in 2009. CG also has made its way into her commercial work for such clients as Cadbury and Greenpeace. She got noticed when she directed a robot-meets-kids short titled Project MICK. Widyanata won the gig with a visual presentation that impressed Lionsgate co-president Erik Feig.

Goodbye for Now will be her feature debut.

Watch Widyanata’s Project MICK short below:

find out how many ways I could write something and make it better.”

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