Peter Greenaway returning to UK

Peter Greenaway [pictured] is set to make his first feature in the UK in more than two decades.

Speaking to Screen, Greenaway said his adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death In Venice (originally set in to shoot in Italy) will now come to the UK in early 2014 and will be made with British actors.

The film will be produced by his regular partner Kees Kasander.

Greenaway’s last feature that shot in Britain was The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover in 1989. Since then, he has worked in continental Europe.

“There is a surge of filmmaking activity in England and the studios seem to be more available,” said Greenaway.

“We go where the circumstances are best in a difficult filmic world where the money and the opportunities and the invitation exists.”

The new Death In Venice will look at Tadzio, the boy doted on by the author Gustav von Aschenbach, much later in his life.

Eisenstein project

A start date of Oct 1 has also now been set for Eisenstein in Guanajuato, Greenaway’s new feature about Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in Mexico.

The producers will be Amsterdam-based Submarine together with Fu Works. Greenaway is still casting for the role of Eisenstein.

3x3D

Greenaway is in Cannes for 3X3D - the Critics’ Week closing film.

It is an omnibus 3D feature that includes 3D films by Greenaway, Jean-Luc Godard and Edgar Pêra, and is sold by Urban Distribution International.

The British director professed himself unimpressed by the 3D format.

“I don’t particularly think that the media adds anything to the grammar or the syntax or the vocabulary of cinema,” Greenaway said.

“I’ve looked and looked for opportunities for feeling that the language of 3D somehow will change our attitude to cinema but alas, I don’t think it is.”

After dismissing 3D as “a local gimmick,” he added: “The most amazing piece of 3D activity I’ve ever seen was entirely outside the entertainment industry.

“I watched a rain surgeon conduct an operation (in 3D), maneuvering his scalpel inside the brain of a six-year-old boy. That was a really extraordinary experience.”