Rutger Hauer and German actor Sebastian Koch have joined the cast of biopic Smoke And Ochre, to be directed by Dutch filmmaker Paula van der Oest.

Dutch actress Carice van Houten plays the lead role of revolutionary South African writer Ingrid Jonker. Hauer will play her father while Koch will appear as her boyfriend Jack Cope.

Dutch company Riba Film is developing the $10.4m (Euros7m) project, which is scheduled to start shooting at the end of this year. It will be the first English-language project for van der Oest whose credits include the Oscar-nominated Zus & Zo.

Riba is the lead producer on the project while co-producers include German Pandora Film, South African Unital Film and Future Films from the UK.

Smoke And Ochre is the first film ever to star both Van Houten and Hauer. They both came to international acclaim after appearing in wartime epics by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. Hauer starred in Soldier Of Orange (1977), while Van Houten took the lead in Blackbook (2006).

Jonker was a well-known and acclaimed white poet living in the South Africa of the 1950s and 1960s.

The project was presented at Rotterdam's 2005 Cinemart with Dutch director Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen attached. Later that year, the 47-year old filmmaker passed away of cancer.

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