Dutch producer Matthijs van Heijningen is set to be one of the first foreigners to make use of the new Belgian tax shelter regulations with English-language mystery piece, Quantum Movie (working title).

The Euros7m production focuses on a historical meeting between physics genius Albert Einstein and other physicists at Brussels' Hotel Metropole in 1927. The action then takes a quantum leap to replay the scene in1940 and again in 1962.

The UK's Kenneth Hope (Superstition) will direct from a script by Paul Pourveur and Christophe Dirickx. A start date is loosely set as the first half of 2004.

Production is by van Heijningen's Sigma Pictures, with Jimmy De Brabant's Delux Studios from Luxembourg and Marmont Film Financing, a Belgian company set up earlier this year by Michel Houdmont and Marc Noyons to take advantage of the new tax regulations.

Van Heijningen has already applied to Eurimages funding available to three-way European co-productions, but expects also to bring in a UK partner. That would make it a Netherlands-Belgium-Luxembourg-UK production.