Bille August checks in for Holmqvist's The Unit

Boogiefilm, producers of the hot Panorama title Romeos, has optioned film rights for Ninni Holmqvist’s first novel The Unit, and has attached Bille August to direct from a screenplay being developed by his regular screenwriter Greg Latter.

The story is set in the near future, where society’s outsiders are used for drug testing and biological harvesting; an unlikely romance blossoms.

Producers Kristina Loebbert and Janna Velber told Screen that the English-language international production would be shot completely in a studio.

In addition, the Cologne-based company is currently raising the financing for Jan Martin Scharf’s Electric Boogie about the breakdancing scene in East Germany at the end of 1980s shortly before the fall of the Wall. The dance and music film is being written by veteran screenwriter Ruth Toma to shoot in summer 2012.