MADRID: Oscar-winning Spanish actors Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem will star in a new film set in Spain by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, Cruz said in an interview published Sunday.
Farhadi, who won the foreign-language Oscar in 2012 for “A Separation” about a middle-class couple’s divorce, is currently finishing the original screenplay for the movie, she told Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia.
“The idea is to film in Spain, we still don’t know where. It is an intense drama which is a gift for actors. And it is a luxury to work for the director of ‘A Separation’, which is wonderful,” the 42-year-old actress said.
Shooting is expected to begin next year.
Cruz and Bardem, who were married in the Bahamas in 2010, are currently working on “Escobar,” a movie about Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Bardem plays Escobar and Cruz plays his lover, journalist Virginia Vallejo, in their first film together since the 2008 Woody Allen romantic comedy “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
Cruz said it was “incredible” that the couple have the chance to work together once again in Farhadi’s new film.
“No one planned it. And we are not going to work together in everything, but if things come up (for both of us) and they make sense, why not?”
Cruz won a supporting-actress Oscar for her role in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Bardem, 47, won a supporting-actor Oscar for the 2007 crime thriller “No Country for Old Men.”
The couple first met while filming “Jamon, Jamon” in 1992, one of Cruz’s first films.
Penelope Cruz, husband to star in Farhadi’s next
Penelope Cruz, husband to star in Farhadi’s next
Egypt’s grand museum begins live restoration of King Khufu’s ancient boat
- The 4,600-year-old boat was built during the reign of King Khufu, the pharaoh who also commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza
CAIRO: Egypt began a public live restoration of King Khufu’s ancient solar boat at the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum on Tuesday, more than 4,000 years after the vessel was first built.
Egyptian conservators used a small crane to carefully lift a fragile, decayed plank into the Solar Boats Museum hall — the first of 1,650 wooden pieces that make up the ceremonial boat of the Old Kingdom pharaoh.
The 4,600-year-old boat was built during the reign of King Khufu, the pharaoh who also commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza. The vessel was discovered in 1954 in a sealed pit near the pyramids, but its excavation did not begin until 2011 due to the fragile condition of the wood.
“You are witnessing today one of the most important restoration projects in the 21st century,” Egyptian Tourism Minister Sherif Fathy said.
“It is important for the museum, and it is important for humanity and the history and the heritage.”
The restoration will take place in full view of visitors to the Grand Egyptian Museum over the coming four years.
