New projects from Ermanno Olmi, Rodrigo Gudino, Xavier Gens, Lajos Koltai and Olivier Megaton.

Starting today, we unveil a weekly crop of highlights from Screenbase, our new up-to-the-minute, online production listings database.

Shooting will start in Italy from October on writer/director Ermanno Olmi’s new film The Cardboard Village (Il Villaggio di Cartone). Italy’s Cinemaudici and Rai Cinema will produce this $10m drama about a priest who comes into contact with a very diverse group of clandestine immigrants. Casting is under way for the lead roles.

Columbiana centres on a young woman who, after witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota, grows up to be an assassin. Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp produces with Besson also responsible for co-writing the script. Shooting will start this summer under Olivier Megaton’s direction.

Spain’s Rodar Y Rodar is teaming up with Canada’s RueMorgue Cinema for Rodrigo Gudiño’s new project Cut Throats Nine – a remake of the cult 1972 spaghetti western. It will star Mads Mikkelsen, Harvey Keitel and Roy Dupuis as convicts in the late 19th century, who are attacked by bandits en route to prison. John Hamilton produces this $6m film, which will start shooting early next year. Sales are handled by E1 Entertainment and Hidden Agenda will distribute in Canada.

Xavier Gens is currently shooting The Divide, a Germany-Canada-US thriller about a small set of divisive individuals all vying for the primal chance to survive. Rosanna Arquette and Milo Ventimiglia head up the cast. Instinctive Film produces for Germany, Julijette for Canada, and Parlay for the US with Ross M. Dinerstein, Darryn Welch, Juliette Hagopian and Nathaniel Rollo as producers.

Jeremy Irons leads the cast for Lajos Koltai’s The Master of Farnow, a co-production between Hungary, Germany and Norway. Based on the novel Schwüle Tage (1904) by Eduard von Keyserling, the story is set in early 20th century Pommerania, Germany, where Thomas von Farnow is growing up and discovers unwelcome truths about his family. Shooting will start in June and last until August. NFP marketing & distribution will release the film in Norway.

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