Helen Mirren attached to star in Simon Curtis’s period drama.

TWC has boarded prestige drama The Woman in Gold, the Origin Pictures-BBC Films period drama ripped from the headlines about a Jewish refugee who took on a government to recover art treasures that belonged to her family.

According to ScreenDaily sources, TWC will handle international sales, US distribution and has been across the production of the project.

Helen Mirren is attached to play Maria Altmann, a Jewish refugee who, with her young lawyer Randol Schoenberg, took on the Austrian government to reclaim a haul of prized Gustav Klimt paintings that were stolen from her family by the Nazis during the Second World War.

The haul includes Klimt’s The Lady In Gold, Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, itself worth more than $130m.

Simon Curtis will direct the Maria Altmann story, written by acclaimed playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell. The production is aiming to shoot later this year with additional cast now assembling.

TWC has been aboard the project since the end of last year and is due to launch concerted sales on the film around Cannes.

The collaboration reunites TWC with My Week with Marilyn director Curtis and producers BBC Films, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom producers Origin, and Harvey Weinstein with The Queen star Mirren.

Topics