Marking their first co-production since announcing their share-swapping production and distribution pact at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Spain's Lolafilms is joining forces with Germany's Kinowelt to make Rain, an English-language American-set project to which Martin Scorsese is attached as executive producer.

The film will be a 50-50 co-production between the two European powerhouses, with Lolafilms' chief executive officer Andres Vicente Gomez and Kinowelt chairman Rainer Koelmel each taking co-producers' credits. Newcomer Katherine Lindberg wrote and will direct the drama, which shoots in Iowa this autumn. Jordi Ros produces.

"It is our intention to develop 10 to 12 projects per year and produce at least two or three of those, making more and more ambitious films," Gomez says, describing those projects as "English-language films to be made in Europe with budgets of around $20m or less." He calls Rain - to be shot in the US and directed by an American - an exception to the rule.

Rain is the first new project to be launched out of Lola's UK branch since it initiated activities last year with an ambitious English-language slate of films, including: Manuel Gomez Pereira's three tenors satire Off Key; John Malkovich's directorial debut The Dancer Upstairs, starring Javier Bardem; Chris Monger's That Girl From Rio; and Susan Seidelman's Gaudi Afternoon.

Lolafilms is 70% backed by Telefonica. The Cannes agreement gave Kinowelt a 15-20% share in Lola, and Lola in turn a 1-2% stake in Kinowelt.

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