Matt Dillon and Marisa Tomei are to star in Norwegianwriter-director-producer Bent Hamer'sadaptation of Charles Bukowski's Factotum,

Hamer, who charmed audiences and critics alike at last year's Canneswith Kitchen Stories, will shoot his English-language debut inMinneapolis from June with a mixed Norwegian and US crew.

The script was written with co-producer Jim Stark and is a drama abouta jack-of-all-trades wandering around Los Angeles trying to live off jobs whichdon't interfere with his primary interests - women, drinking, gambling andwriting.

"We originally met in Cannes in 1995 when Eggs was in Director'sFortnight and he expressed interest in working with me," Hamer explained abouthis relationship with Stark. "However, since I didn't much like any of theAmerican scripts presented to me, he suggested that I picked the materialmyself. That's when I thought of Bukowski, because I have always felt that hisbooks and way of looking at things haven't been appreciated to the extent theydeserve. His stories are about all of us."

Factotum is backed by the Norwegian Film Fund while SF Norgehandle domestic distribution and SF holds the Scandinavian rights.

Hamer made his feature debut with the blackcomedy Eggs in 1995, which had its world premiere at the Director'sFortnight in Cannes. He followed that with Water Easy Reach (1998) and KitchenStories (2003). The latter has won a slew of international film awards andhas been a solid box-office performer with more than 100,000 admissions inNorway, 110,000 in Germany, 73,000 in Italy and 70,000 in France among others.

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