The Almodovar brothers' Madrid-based production house El Deseo has confirmed casting on forthcoming English-language production My Life Without Me from director Isabel Coixet.

Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo, Amanda Plummer and Deborah Harry are set to star in the $2.5m film, which begins shooting March 25 in Vancouver with Canada-based My Life Productions Inc co-producing.

El Deseo is understood to be in talks with Good Machine International (GMI) to handle international sales on Life. GMI handled worldwide sales outside France, UK and Benelux on Pedro Almodovar's forthcoming Talk To Her (Hable Con Ella) and previously handled Latin American sales on Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone (El Espinazo Del Diablo), an El Deseo co-production.

Polley will play Ann, a 23-year old mother of two who finds new meaning to her drab life when she is diagnosed with a terminal illness and decides to complete a list of "things to do before dying." Spanish up-and-comer Leonor Watling, co-star of Talk To Her, also has a supporting role, while Alfred Molina and Scott Speedman are also expected to sign on.

Coixet wrote the script based on a short story by Nanci Kincaid titled Pretending The Bed Is A Raft. It is the director's second English-language outing after 1996's US-shot Things I Never Told You starring Lily Taylor and Andrew McCarthy.