ONCE MORE WITHOUT THE MANDOLIN

It had to happen. With Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - the Working Title production, directed by John Madden and starring Nicolas Cage, Penélope Cruz, Christian Bale and John Hurt - now in post-production, an Italian production company is also making its version of what is, after all, a story with hardly any English or American elements: an Italian soldier falls in love with a Greek girl on the island of Cephalonia which is subsequently taken over by the Germans during World War II.

Universal have yet to set a US release date for the film. But, given that things generally move faster in Europe, Sony’s Italian subsidiary Columbia TriStar Italia could well have their film, Cefalonia, out before then (production started in mid-August, three months after Madden’s film). Written and directed by Claver Salizzato, it stars director and actor Ricky Tognazzi, Sara Miles and Francesco Venditti, and has exactly the same climax as Captain Corelli: the fighting that broke out between the Germans and the seriously outgunned Italians at the very end of the war, leading to the killing of most of the Italian garrison on Cephalonia. What the film won’t have, of course, is the love affair which forms the basis of Louis de Bernière’s best-selling novel.

A BONFIRE NIGHT'S DREAM

Here is a piece of trivia you may have forgotten. Hell, you may never have known it at all: one of the best-known film directors in Sweden is English - Colin Nutley, whose House of Angels featured in the very first issue of Preview. Now, a decade or more later, the Swedes are returning the compliment, dispatching one of their top helmers to the UK.

His name is Mikael Hylin, and he started shooting a Swedish/UK co-production called Dream in Sheffield on Bonfire Night (that’s November 5 to non-Brits). It’s a romantic coming-of-age movie about a sheltered 16-year-old (played by newcomer Kelly Harrison) who leaves home to become a model. The script is by Reidar Jonsson, who wrote My Life as a Dog. Also starring are Sinead Cusack and Joe Absolom (formerly of top British soap EastEnders, seen above left).

Hylin, you may like to know, directed and produced the award-winning Swedish TV programme Expedition Robinson, whose format was picked up by CBS in the US and turned into last summer’s record-breaking series, Survivor.

HAVE YOU GOT THE BALLS FOR THIS

If you’re thinking of going to New Zealand for Christmas (it’s summer down there, remember, and nice and warm, which I can guarantee it won’t be for most of you reading this), you may like to take your pool cue with you.

The country’s first national open 8-ball pool competition is being set up to coincide with the January launch of the film Stickmen, which we featured in our Film File a few issues back. As the title (sort of) implies, Stickmen is about a trio of avid pool players who end up in all kinds of trouble.

It is also the first Kiwi film to get a pre-sale in the UK in nearly a decade (Universal has picked it up for New Zealand, Australia and the UK). It stars Robbie Magasiva, Scott Wills and Paolo Rotondo, and comes as part of a package of films jointly funded by the New Zealand Film Commission, NZ on Air (a separate fund for telemovies), TVNZ and the UK’s Portman Entertainment. Other titles in the package include Via Satellite (featured in Preview 34), Savage Honeymoon and Scarfies.