X Filme Gets Gad Beck, and Bathes in Bloody Bathory

Just to lighten things up after word that Vincent Perez's life is going to hit the big screen, Variety reports that Israeli director Eytan Fox is teaming up with X Filme International for a film based on Gad Beck. Fox is currently writing the mostly-English script with partner and collaborator Gal Uchovsky, to film on location in Germany. While the subject matter is still heavy, this time around the hero has a better fate.

As a gay Jew, Beck had fled from the Nazis, joined the Jewish resistance, and saved dozens of Jewish people from being murdered. According to Uchovsky, "It's a complicated story because Gad's mother was originally a German Christian who converted to Judaism, so he had quite a large German family in Berlin. The Nazis would call someone like Gad a mischling, or half-Jew, so the film will also look at those relations." With a solid $6-$10 milliion price tag, they're hoping to land an American actor as Gad, so this could be a fairly high-profile project. Personally, looking at the pic of Gad to the right, I'm thinking Alan Cumming.
Meanwhile, there's an update about Julie Delpy's upcoming bloody project with X Filme, The Countess. Principal photography is said to begin in one week, shooting in castles through Germany. (The original plan was Hungary, but production costs were found to be much less in Deutschland.) Delpy is tackling the role of Bathory, while also directing, and William Hurt and Daniel Bruehl will co-star as "a father and son torn apart by their relationship with the countess. Hurt portrays a Machiavellian operator out to bring the countess down, while Bruehl's character falls for the woman and becomes her young paramour." Yum! The bloody, tantalizing production also co-stars Vincent Gallo and Radha Mitchell, and I'm already itching for its release sometime next year.