Cult film-maker, actor and author Kenneth Anger, who was honoured last week by the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina, is readying a 40-minute film version of The Gnostic Mass, an occult ceremony set out by Aleister Crowley in 1910.

Anger, who hopes to cast Chloe Sevigny as the priestess, Vincent Gallo as the priest and Dennis Hopper as the deacon, says Sir John Paul Getty is to back the film.

Anger's last completed film was Lucifer Rising in 1980. The new work will be the first by Anger not to use music as its central element; Anger has previously collaborated with Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page.

Anger, who wrote the hit book Hollywood Babylon and its sequel, is now finalising Hollywood Babylon III. Film versions of the original have been mooted in the past, with Ed Pressman alleged to be among the potential suitors, but most have been put off by the size of budget needed to undertake such an epic, said by Anger to be at least $50m.

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