Haneke lines up 'Teacher's Tale'

Bruhl to star in 'Metamorphosis'

By CHRISTIAN KOEHL

Haneke

COLOGNE — Austrian director Michael Haneke, who has just wrapped the U.S. remake of his thriller "Funny Games," has started to prep his next project, "The White Tape or the Teacher's Tale."

German shingle X-Filme Creative Pool and France's Les Films du Losange are on board as co-producers.

Pic, to be set in a Northern German village before World War I, has received $400,000 production support from the French-German Film Funding Commission.

X-Filme is also backing a drama helmed by actress Nicolette Krebitz, "The Heart is a Dark Forest," about a woman who finds out that her husband is leading a double life.

Pic features this year's Silver Berlin Bear winner Nina Hoss ("Yella"), along with Monika Bleibtreu and Otto Sander, and is produced by Tom Tykwer.

It has received financial support from funding bodies FF Hamburg and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

In other production news, Mark Damon's shingle Foresight Unlimited has announced that thesp Daniel Bruhl ("Goodbye, Lenin!") will star in a new adaptation of Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis," the classic spooky novelette about a man who turns into an insect.

Pic will also star Stephen Rea and Anna Paquin.

The production will be the directorial debut of Limor Diamant, the producer of "FeardotCom," and has a reported budget of $9 million.