Film and Music Entertainment (F&ME), has boarded as co-producer Fridrik Thor Fridriksson's first English language project, Falcons, which has just started shooting in Iceland.

Falcons is the story of Dua (Margret Vilhjamsdottir) a young woman who speaks to birds and prefers the company of animals to that of humans. In a small village in the Western Fjords she meets Simon (Keith Carradine) an ex-con who has just finished a jail sentence for murder. As outsiders, these two form a common bond and when they inevitably fall foul of the local authorities in Iceland, they sail for Hamburg, taking with them an Icelandic falcon.

A co-production between Fridriksson's own Icelandic Film Corporation, Germany's Peter Rommel Filmproduktion, Norway's Filmhuset and the UK's F&ME the film will shoot until early November in Iceland, when it will move to Hamburg for the rest of the shoot. Other partners in the project include Eurimages, Arte, ZDF, Hamburg Filmfoerderung, the Icelandic Film Fund, and the Nordic Film and Television Fund.

Falcons brings together Fridriksson's regular team of collaborators including Peter Rommel and Egil Odegaard on the production side as well as writer Einar Karason. Norwegian DOP Harald Gunnar Paalgard rejoins the team having lensed Fridriksson's last outing Angels Of The Universe. Ingvar E Sigurdsson, winner of the audience award for Best Actor at the European Film Awards last year for his role in Angels joins the team as the policeman who hounds the couple out of Iceland.

Delivery is scheduled for March 22, 2002 and international rights remain, at present with the Icelandic Film Corporation.