Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener,City of God) is returning to Brazil to direct Blindness, an English-language film based on the 1995 novel by Portuguese Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago, according to Variety.

The book is a philosophical thriller about an epidemic of blindness that sweeps through an unnamed contemporary city and pushes society to the brink of breakdown.

The $25 million project is being set up as a Brazilian/Canadian co-production. It will shoot next summer in Sao Paolo, Meirelles' hometown, and Toronto.

The script is by Don McKellar, the Canadian writer-director-actor. McKellar also will play a supporting role in the movie. The other parts have yet to be cast.