European Films

André Dussolier at the 2006 Venice Film Festival in 2006 for the presentation of Resnais's 'Coeurs' (Private Fears in Public Places). Photo (c): Fabrizio Maltese for european-films.net / EF Images. All rights reserved.

Catching up with production news that broke during the Berlinale.

French veteran actor André Dussolier (Lemming, Coeurs / Private Fears in Public Places) has been cast as Joseph Stalin in the upcoming Une exécution ordinaire ("An Ordinary Execution"), the directorial debut of Senegal-born French novelist Marc Dugain. Dugain will follow in the footsteps of his bestselling colleagues Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, who directed his own screenplay Odette Toulemonde in 2007 and Philippe Claudel, who presented his first film as a writer-director, Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You for So Long), at the Berlin Film Festival last month.

Dugain is nothing if not ambitious: Une exécution ordinaire offers an overview of recent Russian history in seven parts, starting with a look at Stalin and his mother (to be played by Marina Hands, Lady Chatterley) and spanning the rest of the 20th century until the year 2000, when a Russian submarine tragically sunk to the bottom of the Barents Sea. (source: allocine)

German director Marghereta von Trotta has cast Barbara Sukowa (Romance & Cigarettes) in the lead role of her upcoming biopic Vision -- Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen (Vision -- From the Life of Hildegard of Bingen). The film will mean the fourth collaboration between Sukowa and Von Trotta, the most famous so far probably being Sukowa's title role in 1986's Rosa Luxemburg. Vision is a Franco-German co-production and will portray the life one of the most famous females of the Middle Ages: Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic, herbalist and composer who lived in the 12th century. The film will start shooting this summer and should reach German cinemas in 2009. (source: european-films.net)

French actress Sara Forestier (L'esquive / Games of Love and Chance) will headline the new film of Italian director Tonino Zangardi: Lontano da ogni cosa ("Far Away from Everything"). It is their second collaboration after Sandrine nella pioggia ("Sandrine in the Rain"), which will be released in Italy in September, possibly after a Venice premiere. Lontano da ogni cosa is an adaptation of the eponymous work by 27-year-old Italian novelist Mattia Signorini. Signorini will also write the screenplay in collaboration with Angelo Orlando and the director. Zangardi, most famous for having directed the Valeria Golino vehicle Prendimi e portami via (Take Me Away), is currently casting the two male leads that will complete the triangle of this love story set at Padua University. (source: cinecittà news)

Last but certainly not least: Spanish arthouse favourite Pedro Almodóvar has bought the rights to film Decidme cómo es un árbol ("Tell Me What A Tree Looks Like"), the autobiography of Marcos Ana, a communist poet who spent over 20 years in prison during the Franco dictatorship. Almodóvar has said he would like to film the story after two other projects he has lined up: the upcoming revenge drama El piel que habito ("The Skin I Live In") and his next project, Abrazos rotos ("Broken Hugs"), that will go into production in May. Both films will star Penélope Cruz, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Almodóvar's most recent film Volver. (sources: El Pais and The Independent, via Daily Greencine)