Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon has inked a co-production deal with Toronto, Canada-based prodco Aircraft Pictures to adapt Canadian author Deborah Ellis’s acclaimed children’s novel The Breadwinner into an animated feature film.

The book, which has reached sales in the millions worldwide, tells the story of Parvana, an 11-year-old girl living under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan who is forced to disguise herself as a boy and must support her family after her father is unfairly imprisoned for being an intellectual.

Telefilm Canada, the Irish Film Board, The Belinda Stronach Foundation and Movie Central – a Corus Entertainment Company – have signed on for development support and production in Ireland and Canada is expected this year.

Cartoon Saloon’s Nora Twomey (The Secret of Kells) will direct the film from a screenplay by Ellis and Anita Doron (The End of Silence).