06/09/2007

Mexican star actor Gael Garcia Bernal has accepted to take the lead in Lukas Moodysson’s first English language film, the €7.4m European co-production Mammoth.

“Gael is one of the most exciting actors working today. He is my dream choice for the part of Tom, the film’s young and hugely successful internet visionary”, said the Swedish wunderkind who had his breakthrough in 1998 with Show Me Love. Bernal has worked with many other acclaimed auteur filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar (Bad Education [+see also:
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In Mammoth, Bernal will play Tom, a young IT golden boy living in New York with his wife, his 8 year-old daughter and their Filipino nanny. On a business trip to Thailand, Tom realizes that he wants to change his life. “We are in the final stages of casting and pre-production in Asia and the US and the sets are being built in Trollhättan, Sweden. It´s fantastic to see it all come together” said Moodysson’s usual production partner Lars Jönsson (Memfis Film). Lukas Moodysson’s Mammoth is his most ambitious project to date. Memfis Film is producing with Zentropa’s production division in Denmark and Germany. Other financiers include Film i Väst, SVT, TV2 Denmark, Medienboard Berlin, the Swedish Film Institute, the Danish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond and Eurimages. International sales are handled by Trust Film Sales who started pre-selling the project at the last Cannes Film Festival.