The Serbian film-maker Goran Paskaljevic has lined up Peter Mullan, Ian Hart and Colm Meaney for the leading roles in his first English-language feature film, How Harry Became a Tree, which starts shooting in Hollywood, Co Wicklow, in early October. The film is described as a comic parable about hate, and the clash between traditional culture and modernisation in an Irish village in the 1930s.
Paskaljevic sees his Irish film as a metaphor for the Balkan conflict, a theme he covered memorably in the gripping, dark-humoured The Powder Keg (aka Cabaret Balkan), which was set over one turbulent night in Belgrade in November 1995, on the night the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed.
The subject of a retrospective programme at last month's Galway Film Fleadh, Paskaljevic collaborated with Christine Gentlet and Stephen Walsh in adapting the screenplay for How Harry Became a Tree from a Chinese novella. The film's co-producers include Liam O'Neill of the Dublin-based Paradox Pictures.
HAVING surprised audiences by following his sour and angry In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbours with the often uproariously funny Nurse Betty, director Neil LaBute is defying expectations again with the choice of his next project - the film version of A.S. Byatt's novel, Possession, which won both The Irish Times International Literature Prize and the Booker. The story deals with the relationship between two Victorian poets and the romance that ensues when two contemporary academics study them.
The leading roles will be played by Aaron Eckhart, who has featured in all three of LaBute's first three features, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Shooting gets underway next week at Shepperton Studios outside London and on locations in Lincoln and Yorkshire.
The next project for the irrepressible Roberto Benigni is a new treatment of the children's classic, Pinocchio. It will be Benigni's first film as writer, director and star since his highly successful Life is Beautiful, which won him Oscars for best actor and best foreign-language film last year. Once again, he will be joined in the cast by his wife and regular co-star, Nicoletta Braschi.
Never one given to understatement, Benigni says he has been wanting to play Pinocchio ever since he was born. "For the past 20 years, maybe since I was born I've been wanting my nose to grow," he says. "Finally, while lying in bed thinking, I felt as if someone had taken my hand. It was Pinocchio."
Former US child star Macaulay Culkin is following in the footsteps of Kevin Spacey, Nicole Kidman and Kathleen Turner by making his London stage debut. Now 19, Culkin is set to take the male lead in Richard Nelson's play Madame Melville, as a 15-year-old American living in Paris and having an affair with his French teacher. She will be played by Irene Jacob, winner of the best actress award at Cannes for her dual role in The Double Life of Veronique. The play is to open at the Vaudeville theatre in London in October. Recently separated from his wife, Rachel Miner, Culkin last appeared on screen four years ago opposite Ted Danson in Getting Even With Dad.
Work is already in progress on a sequel to Bryan Singer's hit movie X-Men and the word in Hollywood is that Jean-Claude Van Damme, who hasn't had a hit for years, will join the cast as Gambit, a mutant with electrical powers. A script is being prepared as quickly as possible to put the sequel into production early next year. Several of the mutants omitted from the first film are expected to be included in the next version. All the original cast - including Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Taylor Dane and Anna Paquin - will be returning for the sequel.
Nicole Kidman is being sought by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven to play the early American suffragette leader Victoria Woodhull in his film Other Powers. Woodhull, who briefly worked as a prostitute and became embroiled in an adultery scandal involving a prominent clergyman, became the first woman to run for president in 1872.
Verhoeven, whose new movie Hollow Man opens here on September 29th, claims he finds the subject of women's rights fascinating - which may well come as a surprise to anyone who has seen some of his movies, such as Turkish Delight, Basic Instinct and Showgirls.