Radford ready to guide 'Pioneer'
ROME -- British director Michael Radford, who made the hit 1994 Italian-language melodrama Il Postino (The Postman), is in final talks to take directorial duties on Il Pioniere (The Pioneer), a biopic about a 19th-century Italian explorer who became the first European to mingle with cannibal tribes in sub-Saharan Africa. Rome-based producer Gianfranco Piccioli said Wednesday that Radford has agreed in principle to board the approximately $10 million English-language project, which is scheduled to start shooting in South Africa in early 2004. Piccioli, whose credits include Pupi Avati's acclaimed The Story of Boys and Girls, said he is seeking an A-list Italian star to play Carlo Piaggia, the gutsy Tuscan explorer. British, American and African actors will make up the rest of the cast. In 1856, Piaggia entered a village in the savanna of southern Sudan populated by the Azanda tribe. The Azandas at the time were believed to eat human flesh. He recorded his two-year stay in a diary.
- 3/6/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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