EXCLUSIVE: Essential Killing partners Element, IFB on board, targeting spring 2014 shoot.

Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski is preparing what he describes to Screen as a “catastrophic thriller” to shoot in 2014.

While production details are being kept under wraps, Skolimowski’s wife and regular creative collaborator Ewa Piaskowska confirmed that the production is aiming for a late April 2014 shoot.

The film is currently being produced under Skolimowski and Piaskowska’s Skopia Film banner, with Element Pictures currently on board as co-producer and an offer of backing from the Irish Film Board.

In its latest round of funding the IFB pledged €150,000 production support to the project, which will also look to draw funding from other sources.

Both the IFB and Element collaborated with the feted Skolimowski on his latest film as director, 2010 thriller Essential Killing, starring Vincent Gallo and Emmanuelle Seigner.

That film won three awards at Venice and was sold widely by HanWay, with Tribeca Film taking US rights.

Cannes regular Skolimowski (the director has played in competition on five occasions) has throughout his career interspersed acting with writing and directing features.

His most recent credits are as an actor on Renzo Martinelli’s 2012 war-history The Day of the Siege: September Eleven 1683, in which he played The King of Poland, and I the same year the writer-director also continued his penchant for supporting roles and cameos in Hollywood films with an appearance in Joss Whedon’s blockbuster The Avengers.

Skolimowski’s career spans six decades. Among early feature screenplays was Roman Polanski’s 1962 Oscar-nominated drama Knife in the Water.

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