Matthew Modine will play the male lead in The Three Lucias, an Australian-produced mystery drama which is set and will be wholly shot in Malta.
The US actor will play Tony, a guy with a colourful past who is about to return home with the young daughter he didn't know he had until her mother Lucia died. His daughter is reluctant to leave and forms an attachment to a movie star with her own secrets. Over three days of Easter their lives intertwine with two other women called Lucia.
Writer-director Sandra Sciberras, whose parents hail from Malta, aims to start shooting in November/December. It’s her fourth feature following Max’s Dreaming, Caterpillar Wish and Surviving Georgia.
The producer is David Redman, whose credits include Charlie & Boots, Salute, Till Human Voices Wake Us, You and Your Stupid Mate and Strange Bedfellows.
Claire Forlani (Meet Joe Black, The Rock, Basquiat) is cast as Silent Lucia, who has walled herself into a life of suffering that only her love for her son can free her from.
Marama Corlett (The Devil's Double, Maleficent) is Pregnant Lucia, who thinks she is going mad and is trying to discover why her mother did before it is too late.
Ann Cusack (The Informant, Masters of Sex, Private Practice) is the movie star. Half sisters Rita and Sofia will be played by Tina Rizza and Greta Holland.
Modine’s credits include Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, Alan Parker’s Birdy, Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and Alan Rudolph’s Equinox.
The Malta Film Commission is supporting the project. Development was funded by Film Victoria and by Australian-born, Berlin-based financier Felix Snow.
Sciberras says, “I love watching emotionally flawed characters find their way in cinema and in The Three Lucias I wanted to create a hot bed of ‘life’ as the biggest challenge of all. Set against the Easter period in Malta, the themes of sacrifice and redemption are illuminated with each story."