After executive producing Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake, Emile Sherman and Iain Canning have boarded another New Zealand-based project, the feature Slow West.
The Western-themed film will mark the debut of John Maclean, formerly a member of Scottish musical group The Beta Band.
Maclean has embarked on a career as a filmmaker: his short film Pitch Black Heist, which starred Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham as professional safe crackers, won the BAFTA award for best short last year.
Fassbender is in talks to play the lead in Slow West, according to Screen Daily. The New Zealand Film Commission is investing in the film.
Details on the film are sketchy but the NZFC confirms it will be a UK-New Zealand co-production, with Great Southern Film & Television’s Rachel Gardner as the Kiwi producer, and it’s expected to shoot in NZ later this year.
The UK co-producer is DMC Film, in which Fassbender is partnered with Conor McCaughan, and broadcaster Film4 is involved.
Fassbender starred in Steve McQueen’s Shame, which was produced by Sherman and Canning’s See-Saw Films. The actor is attached to star with Natalie Portman in See-Saw’s Macbeth, a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, to be directed by Snowtown’s Justin Kurzel.