EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani will star in Qissa director Anup Singh’s upcoming drama Mantra - The Song Of Scorpions.

Farahani will play a singer and scorpion healer from the Manganiar community of Rajasthan in the Switzerland-France-India co-production.

Geneva-based Saskia Vischer is lead producer on the project, which will be co-produced by Thierry Lenouvel of France’s Cine Sud Promotion and Rakesh Mehra of India’s Kriti Productions. Lenouvel was a co-producer and Mehra the line-producer on Qissa.

Farahani was nominated as most promising actress at this year’s Cesar Awards in France for her role in Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone. Her credits also include Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly (2009) and Hiner Saleem’s My Sweet Pepper Land (2013). She also starred in Ridley Scott’s Body Of Lies (2008) alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.

Scheduled to shoot next year, Mantra - The Song Of Scorpions is a contemporary folktale set in the desert of Rajasthan. The film was selected for the Co-production Market at Film Bazaar last year.