In France Samuel Rondière is gearing up to shoot La Braconne, and Manoel de Oliveira’s is preparing Gebo And The Shadow; while in the UK Danny Donnelly’s Payback Season has started production.

Christophe Lambert has been confirmed to star in Samuel Rondière’s drama La Braconne about a petty criminal who takes a marginalized, violent young man under his wing. Based on a script by Rondière, the $4.3m film is produced by Dominique Crèvecoeur for  Bandonéon and received financial backing from the CNC and Région Centre in France. Principal photography is scheduled to commence in November and Rezo Films has been appointed as the distributor for France.

Portuguese-French co-production Gebo And The Shadow is adapted from Portuguese writer Raul Brandao’s realist novel Gebo and focuses on a father who sacrifices himself to protect his fugitive son. Manoel de Oliveira [pictured] will direct from his own screenplay and Luís Urbano and Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre will produce for Portugal’s O Som e A Furia and France’s Mact Productions respectively. Ricardo Trepa, Leonor Silveira and Michel Piccoli will head up the cast, with shooting of the $2.2m drama expected to start at the end of August or in early September.  Epicentre Films will release the film in France.

Meanwhile in London shooting kicked off this week on Danny Donnelly’s thriller Payback Season, with Adam Deacon, Nichola Burley and Leo Gregory among the cast. John Adams and Danny Donnelly are producing for Angry Badger Pictures and Pure Film Productions. Donnelly also wrote the screenplay, which focuses on a young man’s struggles to balance his life as a professional footballer with his background on a council estate.