Paulo Branco to produce Joseph Conrad's An Outpost of Progress

Veteran Portuguese producer Paulo Branco is planning a big screen adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s An Outpost of Progress.

After backing an adaptation of Conrad’s Almayer’s Folly in 2011, made by Chantal Ackerman, Branco is now working on a film version of the novelist’s short story.

Written in 1897 and drawing on his own experience in the Congo, it deals with two European men who are assigned to a trading post in a remote part of the African jungle. But as isolation demoralises the pair and diseases weaken them, the story ultimately ends in tragedy.

The film will shoot in Angola, close to the location in which Conrad wrote the story, and will be directed by Hugo Vieira Da Silva. The cast is led by Nuno Lopes. It will be made through Leopardo Filmes and Amour Fou Vienna as a Portuguese-Austrian coproduction.

Meanwhile, together with Filmgalerie 451, Branco is coproducing $6m Second World War drama The Captain from director Robert Schwentke (Flightplan).

The veteran producer is also producing an adaptation of cult Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz’s Cosmos that will mark Andrzej Zulawski’s comeback as a director.

The film is casting now and Branco expects to shoot later in the year.

Already shooting is Bonnie and Clyde-style drama Astragal, directed by Brigitte Sy and adapted from the novel by Albertine Sarrazin. It stars Liela Bekhti and Reda Kateb and is produced by Branco’s Alfama alongside France 3 Cinema.

Branco added that he is in pre-production on Philippe Ramos’ Venus Ouverte, starring Melvil Pipaud.

Benoit Jacquot is now attached to direct another Branco project, The Body Artist, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel. I Am Love director Luca Guadagnino was previously attached to the project.