The model-turned-actress who was in "Love Actually," Sienna Guillory, is in advanced talks to topline Antonio Cuadri's "The Heart of the Earth," the latest addition to Spain's growing stable of bigger-budgeted historical adventure pics.
Rolling in March, pic is being presented to buyers at Berlin by sales company Sequence/IAC Films.
Taking place in Andalusia's Rio Tinto, the second-largest open-cast mine in the world, "Heart" is a heady romancer with a social conscience. It's set in the late 19th century against a background of tensions between the mine's British managers and its dirt-poor Spanish workers. Pic climaxes with the massacre of demonstrating workers by Spanish troops.
Guillory looks set to play Katherine, the English niece of the mine manager, and part of a love triangle.
Portuguese thesp Joaquim de Almeida limns a brutal foreman. "Earth's" cinematographer is Javier Aguirresarobe.
Just over 50% of pic's budget has been put up by Surinvest Capital Andalusia, a new private-sector film and TV investment fund in Andalusia.
"Earth" is produced by Spain's Manufacturas Audiovisuales, Guy Collins and Mike Ryan's London-based Sequence/IAC, and the U.K.'s Future Films. Luis Angel Bellaba is exec producing.
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