Berlin-based producer Marco Mehlitz, in Cannes with Jennifer Lynch's Surveillance which screens next Wednesday, is here assembling the financing for Istvan Szabo's next film A Half Of Two Lives, an English-language drama based on the 1982 novel by Alison Waley.

Mehlitz whose Lago Film is co-producing with Jeffrod Entertainment in Australia says the $20m film will shoot in September in London with a high-level cast as in Szabo's previous English-language films such as Being Julia, Sunshine and Meeting Venus.

Christine Olsen (Rabbit-Proof Fence) has written the screenplay of the novel which was set in 1937 and followed the author's trip from New Zealand to London where she became involved in a love triangle with a married man. The film brings the story to present day.

Mehlitz is pre-selling both Germany and France himself, and has yet to engage a sales agent.

Mehlitz, who is in the middle of the lengthy post-production process for Jaco Van Dormael's $50m drama Mr Nobody starring Jared Leto, is also working on initial financing for Nuvolare about the famous Italian racecar driver from the 1930s and The Emperor Of The United States, the story of the self-proclaimed title character Joshua A Norton which is based on an original 1946 script by Bill Roberts.