Mariah Carey will star in Tennessee, an independent drama to be directed by Aaron Woodley (Rhinoceros Eyes) from a script by Russell Schaumberg, reports Variety. The film will be produced by Lee Daniels (Monster's Ball) and shoots in New Mexico and Tennessee this spring.

Carey plays a waitress who sets off with two brothers to find their estranged father. Their goal: Get dad involved in saving their younger brother, who has leukemia. While Carey's movie resume is overshadowed by the disappointing 2001 film Glitter, Daniels got the idea to cast her after watching her Grammy-winning album "The Emancipation of Mimi" become the biggest selling disc of 2005 and viewing her work in 2002's WiseGirls.

"I never saw 'Glitter,' but I liked her work in the other film. Because this character is interracial and struggles with all sorts of issues because of that, I thought she was perfect," said Daniels, who also produced "The Woodsman" and made his directing debut on the Helen Mirren-Cuba Gooding Jr. starrer "Shadowboxer" (Variety).

Russell Schaumburg has written numerous feature-length film screenplays, including “Tennessee” and “The Man in the Woods”. Both placed among the top 50 finalists in the prestigious Chesterfield Writer’s Film Project. He was also a semifinalist in The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting program. Lee Daniels, producer of “Monster’s Ball” and “The Woodsman,” optioned Schaumburg’s “Tennessee” this past May, and its upcoming production was recently announced in Daily Variety.

“Tennessee” is a story about two brothers who must return to their boyhood home in East Tennessee from New Mexico to find their abusive father when one of the brothers falls ill and needs a life-saving bone marrow transplant from the very man they ran from many years ago (Comingsoon.net).