Fiennes
Hand Picked Films principals Michel Shane and Anthony Romano and financier Carlos Melcer have come aboard to produce biopic "Vivaldi" along with Boris Damast and Andrea Kikot of Mechaniks.
Joseph Fiennes stars, with lensing scheduled to begin in the spring in Venice and Vienna. Damast ("Pros & Cons") is directing Jeffrey Freedman's script.
Hand Picked is overseeing distribution and financing. Melcer will exec produce along with Ampersand Management Group.
Story follows Vivaldi as a young, eccentric priest in the 1700s assigned to serve as music master of a school for the abandoned illegitimate daughters of Venice's courtesans. Malcolm McDowell, Lena Headey, Jacqueline Bisset, Gerard Depardieu and Elle Fanning also star.
Hand Picked's current projects include "Buddha," with M Films, and a biopic on Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton, the NBA's first black player, with Sunset Pictures and Martin Guigui directing. Shane and Romano were exec producers on "I, Robot," "Catch Me if You Can" and "Northfork," as well as the upcoming "Triggerfish."
Another Vivaldi project is in development at Imagine Entertainment and Columbia.
Contact Dave McNary at
dave.mcnary@variety.com