Lines Of Wellington is currently casting

Paulo Branco’s Alfama Films is back in business with Chilean auteur Raul Ruiz on Lines Of Wellington, an epic new Napoleonic-era film that Branco is billing as “War And Peace in Portugal”. Scripted by Carlos Saboga, the €5m project dramatises the events during the third French invasion of Portugal in 1810-1811. Ruiz has put aside plans for the previously announced Black Book Of Dennis to concentrate on the project, which is currently casting. The film will be in Portuguese, French and English.

The idea is to make the movie as a two hour feature and as a 3 x 50 minute TV series. Branco hopes to shoot in September.

The new film follows on from Ruiz’s successful movie/TV series, Mysteries Of Lisbon, which is continuing to sell around the world. Deals Branco confirmed this week include Japan (Alcine Terran).

Branco is one of the producers on David Cronenberg’s Don De Lillo adaptation Cosmopolis, starring Robert Pattinson, Paul Giamatti, Juliette Binoche, Samantha Morton and Mathieu Amalric. Shooting begins on May 23. The project is sold by Kinology.