Dutch director Marleen Gorris, winner of this year's Best Foreign-language Film Oscar for Antonia (Antonia's Line) - having a festival screening today - is to direct the US$4 million feature film adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway.

Vanessa Redgrave will play the lead role.

Produced by Bill Shepherd, and with shooting at UK's Shepperton Studios scheduled to start on 23 July, the story takes place on a single day in London just after the First World War, as a wife of a politician prepares to host a party whose guests include her one-time suitor, just returned from India.

Mrs. Dalloway will be the director's second English-language feature. Previous to Antonia's Line, she directed The Last Island about survivors of a plane crash who believe that they might be the planet's only living beings after a major nuclear catastrophy.

In Antonia, we follow the tumultuous life of an independent, unselfconscious and eccentric woman and her predominantly female relatives, with the daily life in a small country village as background.

In its 18 weeks of release in the US, the international festival favourite has already grossed US$3.5 million, with a worldwide box office cumulative approaching US$10 million.

Because of the 23 July shoot, it was impossible for the director to accompany her film to Prague.

Christian De Schutter

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