Joseph (Bassanio, Luther, Shakespeare [in Love]) Fiennes will be the man
himself in Hand Picked Films' Vivaldi "biopic," to be shot in Venice and
Vienna beginning next month.

According to the studio, "the story follows vivaldi as a young, eccentric
priest in the 1700s assigned to serve as music master of a school for
the abandoned illegitimate daughters of Venice's courtesans" (and I
thought Ospedale della Pieta was an equal-opportunity orphanage).

In the cast: Malcolm McDowell, Lena Headey, Jacqueline Bisset, Gerard
Depardieu, and Elle Fanning.  Boris Damast - with the only "credit" of
"Pros & Cons" - directs.

And then, there is this cryptic bit of information: "Another Vivaldi
project is in development at Imagine Entertainment and Columbia." All
this in a non-anniversary year!

Janos Gereben/SF
www.einsiders.com
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