Agota Kristof's award-winning anti-war novel The Notebook (Le Grand Cahier) is to be adapted for the cinema screen by Hungarian writer-director Janos Szasz.

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily, producer Sandor Soth of Intuit Pictures said that he had secured the film rights against stiff competition. He is looking in Berlin for co-producers and a sales company for the German-Austrian-Hungarian-French co-production which is set to shoot from early 2010.

'After such psychological dramas as Woyzeck and Opium, Janos is the right man for this story,' Soth said.

Before this project, Intuit will be the German partner with Jeno Habermann's Filmart on Istvan Szabo's next English-language feature Behind The Door which will begin principal photography in Budapest and Cologne from this August.