Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray have teamed up with Italian producer Davide Azzolini to bring to life Colum McCann’s novel Dancer based on the life of the Russian ballet icon.

Dancer will recount Nureyev’s event-filled life through the eyes of those who knew him well, from his birth in Russia during WWII and his defection to his rise to international stardom and eventual death from AIDS in 1992.

For full production details visit

“The opportunity to work with Colum on this project has been a dream of ours,” said Styler and Rattray. “It’s a moving tale – one that really fits with Maven’s commitment to stories with riveting characters.”

“As I read the novel for the first time many years ago, I realized the extraordinary visual potential in it and I immediately started talking with Colum about how to turn it into a film,” said Azzolini, who recently finished producing Jonathan Demme’s documentary Enzo Avitabile Music Life.

Maven has two films in post-production: Filth starring James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, Jamie Bell and Imogen Poots and Imogene with Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening and Matt Dillon.