Eva Green and Matt Smith, the UK's new Doctor Who, are to star in Hungarian director Benedek Fliegauf's first English language feature film Womb which will begin shooting on location at Germany's North Sea coast at the beginning of March.

The production by Waltz With Bashir producers Razor Film and Budapest-based Inforg Studio is being co-produced by ASAP Films, ZDF/Arte and Arte Cinema and will be handled internationally by The Match Factory.

Support for the film came from Filmfoerderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Eurimages, DFFF, FFA, the MEDIA Programme, the Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary, ScriptEast, and Cinefondation's L'Atelier in Cannes.

Speaking to ScreenDaily, Fliegauf explained the reasons for making this first foray into shooting in English. 'It is a very universal story, a love story, so that is why I want to shoot it in English because that is the common language for everyone today. If I had set the film in the Middle Ages, I would have had to have people speaking Latin.'

Fliegauf noted, 'one will know the setting is somewhere in Europe, but we don't know exactly where. The first sentence in the screenplay of the movie will be: 'We are somewhere in North Europe in the near future'.'

'We followed Benedek's way for a long time now,' Match Factory's Michael Weber added. 'Womb is one of the most touching and impressive love stories we have read in recent times.'

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