08/05/2017 - The pan-European cast also includes Adèle Exarchopoulos and Chulpan Khamatova

Ralph Fiennes will direct and star in The White Crow [+see also:
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film profile], a biopic about legendary Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev based on the book Rudolf Nureyev: The Life by Julie Kavanagh, adapted by BAFTA-, Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated writer David Hare (The Hours). Principal photography will commence at St Petersburg and Paris locations this summer.

Ukrainian dancer and actor Sergei Polunin, who will be seen later this year in Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, will play Nureyev, while Fiennes will play his ballet master mentor, Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin. The rest of the pan-European cast includes France’s Adèle Exarchopoulos, who made history in 2013 when she was awarded the Palme d’Or for Blue Is the Warmest Colour [+see also:
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interview: Abdellatif Kechiche
film profile] along with director Abdellatif Kechiche and co-star Léa Seydoux, marking the first time ever that the prize was shared with actors; fellow French actors Laurent Lafitte (Elle [+see also:
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interview: François Ozon
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interview: Louis Hofmann
interview: Martin Zandvliet
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Gabrielle Tana will produce for Magnolia Mae Productions with Francois Ivernel for Montebello Productions. Joe Oppenheimer and Beth Pattinson will executive-produce for BBC Films. HanWay Films is handling international sales and will showcase the film at the Cannes Film Market.

After making his screen debut on television, Fiennes debuted as a leading man in Peter Kosminsky’s Wuthering Heights (1992). In a long and storied acting career, he won the BAFTA Supporting Actor Award for Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1994), for which he also received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations; he also scored BAFTA, Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient (1996). He made his directorial debut in 2011 with the Shakespeare adaptation Coriolanus [+see also:
trailer
film profile],which was BAFTA-nominated in the Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer category. His next film as director was The Invisible Woman [+see also:
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interview: Ralph Fiennes
film profile] (2013), which received BAFTA and Oscar nominations.