Multi-hyphenate artist Sook-Yin Lee has found her next big project: directing a live-action feature film adaptation of the graphic novel that her ex-boyfriend, Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, wrote after she broke up with him 26 years ago.
Published in 2011, Brown's bestselling Paying for It — "a comic strip memoir about being a john" — recounts his decision to forgo traditional romance following his split from Lee. Confronted with two competing desires, to have sex and to not have a girlfriend, he ends up arguing that paying sex workers is superior to the "possessive monogamy" of heteronormative relationships.
Since she's more than a minor character in the story, it's only fitting to have Lee direct the movie. She's also co-writing the screenplay with Joanne Sarazen (Tammy's Always Dying). Paying for It is being produced by Wilding Pictures and Hawkeye Pictures, with support from Telefilm Canada.
The director let the cat out of the bag on Facebook yesterday (July 27), writing: "I'm making a doozy of a movie!"
See Lee's Facebook post announcing the news below.
Lee joined forces with Hot Garbage's Dylan Gamble on 2020 pandemic film Death and Sickness. She also appeared in Danny Alexander's Toronto music scene documentary No Tickets at the Door in 2021, the same year that she released jooj two — a collaboration with her late romantic and creative partner, Adam Litovtiz.
Published in 2011, Brown's bestselling Paying for It — "a comic strip memoir about being a john" — recounts his decision to forgo traditional romance following his split from Lee. Confronted with two competing desires, to have sex and to not have a girlfriend, he ends up arguing that paying sex workers is superior to the "possessive monogamy" of heteronormative relationships.
Since she's more than a minor character in the story, it's only fitting to have Lee direct the movie. She's also co-writing the screenplay with Joanne Sarazen (Tammy's Always Dying). Paying for It is being produced by Wilding Pictures and Hawkeye Pictures, with support from Telefilm Canada.
The director let the cat out of the bag on Facebook yesterday (July 27), writing: "I'm making a doozy of a movie!"
See Lee's Facebook post announcing the news below.
Lee joined forces with Hot Garbage's Dylan Gamble on 2020 pandemic film Death and Sickness. She also appeared in Danny Alexander's Toronto music scene documentary No Tickets at the Door in 2021, the same year that she released jooj two — a collaboration with her late romantic and creative partner, Adam Litovtiz.