Andres Vicente Gomez's Lolafilms will produce a new Spanish-language biopic about prominent 20th-century poet Jaime Gil de Biedma.

Guillermo Toledo (Crimen Ferpecto) is set to star in the estimated $7.7m (Euros 6m) El Consul De Sodoma for director Agusti Villaronga. Gomez says he hopes to co-produce with France and shoot from May.

Gil de Biedma, who died in 1990, was one of Spain's most influential poets of the last century and an outspoken homosexual. His poems and prose alike addressed political and sexual issues in Franco Spain.

The film is the latest project from the busy Madrid-based production house, which is also preparing Vicente Aranda's $6.5m (Euros 5m) Lolita's Club (El Club De Lolita) with star Eduardo Noriega playing twin brothers leading divergent lives as a violent ex-police officer and a mentally handicapped man in love with a prostitute.

Lolafilms will premiere writer-director Ray Loriga's much-anticipated Paz Vega-starrer Teresa in Spain on Feb 23 while international sales handler HandMade Films International is organizing invitation-only screenings in Berlin.

Now in post-production are the $25.8m (Euros 20m) Manolete, starring Adrien Brody and Penelope Cruz, aiming for a Cannes-timed release and also handled internationally by HandMade; and Carlos Saura's Italian- and German-language Io, Don Giovanni about Mozart's librettist, premiering next September.