Johnny Depp and Javier Bardem invited to film in Kazakhstan

Moscow.- Kazakhstan, offended a year ago by "Borat" and rewarded now with their first nomination to the Oscar with "Mongol", prepares the filming of a coproduction to with guests actors of the size of Johnny Depp and Javier Bardem.

The American actor and Spaniard have accepted to star in a movie, coproduced by U.S. and Kazakhstan companies, that will roll next year in the steppes of Kazakh. Ang Reads, the "Oscar-winning" Taiwanese director Ang Lee , has been chosen to direct.

Tthis was announced this week by filmmaker Kazakh Gulnará Sarsénova, whose production company plans to shoot with the American one Michael Fitzgerald and to the French director Luc Besson, who besides plans to be take charge of the distribution of the movie, revealed Efe.

The it film will be based on the novel "Waiting for the Barbarians" (Waiting for the barbarians, 1980) by the South African author John Maxwell Coetzee, Nobel Prize of Literature 2003 and two times Prize Book winner, said Sarsénova in interview to the newspaper digital Kazakh "Caravan".

"Already we have acquired the rights to bring the book to the screenl, one that has fascinated my friend and associate, Fitzgerald. During his visit to Kazakhstan, he remained amazed and he decided to film the movie here", he explained.

It required a collaboration with Fitzgerald in the filming of "In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead," directed by the Bertrand Tavernier and based on a thriller of James Burke.

The main role in "In the Electric Mist", now in state of postproducción, is Tommy Lee Jones, who likewise will be invited to star in the new film next to another famous interpreter "Oscar-winning", Jack Nicholson, indicated Sarsénova.

"We plan that the main role, that of the Colonel, be played by Johnny Depp. Michael already spoke with him, and Johnny, in principle, gave its consent, although in the end, all will depend on whether he can find time in his shooting schedule", indicated the production company Kazakh.

He added that "The second more important role, that of the judge, was offered to the magnificent Spanish actor Javier Bardem, two times nominated for an Oscar, who likewise has accepted the proposal".

The production company must start prepreproduction of the film next autumn, once the director and cast are set and when John Coetzee finishs the screenplay based on its novel.

According to Sarsénova, a team of 150 people worked in the filming of "In the Electric Mist," but for "Waiting for the Barbarians" Fitzgerald is planing to bring the project to Central Asia and hire about twenty professionals.

The production company confirmed the intention of the Kazakh Government to premiere the first international festival of movies of Kazakhstan this year. Among the guests are expected the actors Jack Nicholson, Tommy Lee Jones, Faye Dunaway, and the directors Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Moore and Luc Besson.

The festival will probably be celebrated next June, although it still remains to decide if it will be in the new administrative capital of the country, Astaná, or in the old city, Soul-Atá.

Kazakhstan, is not a stranger to the world of the movies, a year ago it felt offended and ridiculed by "Borat", by British screenwriter Sasha Baron Cohen -who embodies the eccentric journalist-, by appeared to the country and to its inhabitants as racists, wild, antisemitic, misogynous and incestuous.

Nevertheless, the DVD of the movie did well in Kazakhstan, and the authorities reconsidered their position and they renounced their stand with "Borat", upon understanding that he was a matter of a farce that, more than to that country, he ridiculed the U.S.

The minister of Tourism and Sport of Kazakhstan, Temirján Dosmujanbétov, even admitted in December that "Borat", in the end, has increased interest and tourism in that central-Asian republic.

And now, Kazakhstan is a candidate for the Oscar with "Mongol", a film that relates the youth of Genghis Khan and that was nominated in the category of Best Foreign Film.

"Mongol", directed by the Russian Sergei Bodrov, is centered in the Mongolia of the century XII in which the 9-year-old boy Temudgin, prepars to become the warlike Genghis Khan, who, before he conquered the world, was a slave.