Tank Girl Makes Her Directorial Debut With Gritty Life Story

TANK GIRL star LORI PETTY has turned her tough Iowa upbringing into a new movie, and cast SELMA BLAIR as her mother.

Petty wrote and directed The Poker House, staging a lengthy casting call to find the newcomer who would play her as a child, Jennifer Lawrence - and called on the Hellboy star to play her mum.

Perry's autobiographical directorial debut, about her poverty-stricken teenage years, will premiere at the upcoming Los Angeles Film Festival.

A film insider says, "It's a ravishing portrait of poor, small town life in Iowa, circa 1976 - Marvin Gaye, seedy bars, and the ever present allure of illicit activities and substances."

Blair plays a mum of three daughters in the film. Her eldest, Agnes, is inspired by Lori herself.

The film includes Petty's "pimp father figure, and a memorable assortment of dangerous yet colourful gamblers, thieves and johns."

Petty says, "This is a movie that had to be made, so it showed up uninvited as my adolescence. The movie is the eldest daughter, me, realising between a heartbeat, that things may happen to you, but they don't happen to you forever unless you let them."