Refugees of the Second Sudanese Civil War will be front and center in a new feature film project that is currently wooing Reese Witherspoon to star.

Inspired by true events, and titled The Good Lie, according to the press release, the story will follow…

… a young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War who wins a lottery for relocation to the United States with three other lost boys. Encountering the modern world for the first time, they develop an unlikely friendship with a brash American woman assigned to help them, but the young man struggles to adjust to this new life and his feelings of guilt about the brother he left behind.

Witherspoon will play the brash American woman. But no word yet on what actors will play the South Sudanese boys. Although I did dig up a December casting notice for the project calling specifically for South Sudanese youth to fill roles, with a March 2013 shoot start date planned.

The Good Lie will be directed by Philippe Falardeau (Monsieur Lazhar) from a script by Margaret Nagle, and will be produced by Black Label Media, along with Imagine’s Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Karen Kehela Sherwood.