RUIZ ROCKS ON WITH RUSHDIE

It’s not a pairing one would necessarily have predicted: Indian-born novelist Salman Rushdie and Chilean-born, French-resident film-maker Raul Ruiz. Sure, they’re both more or less exiles: Ruiz left Chile during the Pinochet era, and Rushdie’s relationship with his native country has never been the same since Midnight’s Children, let alone The Satanic Verses.

But Ruiz is not the director who would have come to mind first to make the movie version of The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Rushdie’s most recent - and, it has to be said, most coolly received - novel. It is a modern version of the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, has a definite rock ‘n’ roll sensibility (Rushdie counts rock royalty among his close friends and has appeared on stage with the likes of U2) and would be the first of his novels to have been made into a film.

Ruiz, on the other hand, has no known links with rock ‘n’ roll, and until recently had carved out a notable career as a maker of quirky, sometimes surreal art movies on very modest budgets. His latest film, however, was in a quite different mode: Le temps retrouvé (Time Regained), a long, faithful adaptation of Proust which premiered at Cannes in 1999, was seen around the world and was a surprise hit in the UK last year.

Production is tentatively set to start at Fox Studios in Sydney in October, and is slated to run through until early next year, with a release pencilled in for the latter half of 2000.Like most of Ruiz’s recent films, The Ground Beneath Her Feet will be produced by Paulo Branco’s Paris-based Gémini Films, with a budget of $15 million, and with shooting set to take place in the UK, US and Mexico early next year. No cast members have yet been set.

Gémini, meanwhile, is also behind another English-language auteur movie: Alan Rudolph’s Investigating Sex, which began shooting in Berlin at the end of May. The story of a group of latter-day Kinseys carrying out a scientific study of sex, it has a high-power cast headed by Nick Nolte - a Rudolph regular, following Afterglow and Breakfast of Champions, whose production company, Kingsgate Films, is partnered in the new film - with scream queen Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney, Julie Delpy, Dermot Mulroney and Jeremy Davies. The latter has been particularly busy of late, following Up at the Villa (see Preview 45) and Wim Wenders’ Berlinale opener, Million Dollar Hotel.

NURSE MEG AND DOCTOR KEVIN

If you were looking for a replacement for Catherine Zeta-Jones, who would you choose? Penélope Cruz, perhaps? Or Charlize Theron..? While male readers indulge their fantasies on this matter, let me give the not entirely expected answer: Meg Ryan.

Of course, the chooser is Oliver Stone, who can usually be counted on to do things differently from other people. And I dare say other actresses’ schedules may have had something to do with it. But, when war tale Beyond Borders was first announced towards the end of last year (see Preview 42), the actress playing a nurse opposite Kevin Costner’s international disaster relief worker was Zeta-Jones. That was before she got pregnant, however. And so, with the film’s start date getting nearer, Stone and production outfit Mandalay needed a replacement.

The role that Ryan will play is not just any old nurse, of course: it is that of a rich socialite who discovers a conscience and goes off to work in the dangerous world of international relief. What is more, she is married - and not to the Costner character. But, brought together by danger, they begin an affair which flares with each new trouble spot and is rekindled with every fresh crisis. Shooting is due to start in October, with locations set to include the UK, Africa and South East Asia.

TYKWER GOES TO HEVEN

Those who were beginning to think that hip German director Tom Tykwer and his Berlin-based company, X-Filme Creative Pool, were (with all due allowance for cultural differences) the German equivalent of Miramax will not be surprised to hear that the latter has signed Tykwer to direct a film.

And not just any film, either: the movie will be taken from a screenplay by the late Polish master Krzysztof Kieslowksi and his regular writing partner, Krzysztof Piesiwicz. The $11-million project is called Heaven, and is a romantic drama in which Cate Blanchett is expected to star as a Scottish woman who moves to Tuscany and has an affair with an Italian. Anthony Minghella - whose last two hit movies, The English Patient and The Talented Mr Ripley, have both been for Miramax and both shot in Italy - will produce.

Like most things Kieslowski did, Heaven is part of a trilogy, with - you will not be surprised to hear - the other parts called Purgatory and Hell. Tykwer may direct these, too, but the present deal is just for Heaven.
The trilogy is, in fact, fulfilling Kieslowksi’s original intentions. He never planned to direct the films, but wanted that to be done by an up and coming young European director or directors.
Tykwer’s only film since Lola rennt, Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Warrior and the Empress), was at one stage expected to show up in Cannes. Shot last summer, it could be ready for Venice.