Beta Cinema hastaken on international sales on Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Luigi Falorni's fiction feature debut Heart Of Fire based on SenaitMehari's international bestseller of the same name.

Published in2004 as Feuerherz,Mehari's memoirs recount how she was given away byher despotic father to the Eritrean Liberation Front to become a child soldierat the age of six. The sharp-witted little Senaitlived through the horrors of a guerrilla war and challenged her leader'sauthority with her risky decision never to kill. Heart Of Fire will be published in the UK this summer.

For Italian-bornFalorni, this will be his first foray into directinga fiction feature film after receiving a Oscarnomination in 2005 along with fellow student ByambasurenDavaa for the documentary feature The Story Of The Weeping Camel, whichwas their graduation film from the Academy for Television & Film (HFF) in Munich.

Heart Of Fire (working title) is budgeted at $5.5m and is beingproduced by Munich-based production houses TV60Film and BurkertBareiss.It is slated to begin principal photography this autumnat originallocations with a cast largely made up of locally recruited non-professionalactors.

TV60Film's Sven Burgemeister received an Oscar nomination this year throughhis other company Goldkind Film for Sophie Scholl - TheFinal Days, while BurkertBareiss' Andreas Bareiss was part of the production team behind theOscar-winner Nowhere In Africa in2002.