Javier Camara is heading into the trees…

The 53-year-oldSpanish actor has been cast opposite Liev Schreiber in the feature film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s Venice-set novel, Across The River And Into The Trees.

In addition to Camara and Schreiber, the cast also includes emerging Italian actress Matilda De Angelis, Laura Morante and Oscar-nominated Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini.

Schreiber will play Colonel Richard Cantwell, Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical lead character who is an American officer serving in Italy right after World War II, facing up to the news of his terminal illness with stoic disregard. Determined to spend his weekend in quiet solitude, he commandeers a military driver to facilitate a simple duck hunting trip and a visit to his old haunts in Venice. As his plans begin to unravel, a chance encounter with a young countess begins to kindle in him the hope of renewal. The novel was the penultimate to be published while the writer was alive.

Hemingway based the two leads on real people: the officer was his friend Colonel Buck Lanham, a decorated soldier whose heroics the writer saw first-hand when he was a correspondent, and the woman was an aristocrat’s daughter with whom he became infatuated.

The privately financed movie is due to start production next month in Venice and the surrounding areas under COVID-19 guidelines. The project has the support of the Italian tax credit and the Veneto region.

Produced by Robert MacLean of Tribune Pictures, the screenplay comes from BAFTA-nominee Peter Flannery (The Devil’s Whore).

Spanish filmmaker Paula Ortiz will direct and DoP Javier Aguirresarobe and production designer Benjamin Fernandez are among the experienced key crew.

A previous incarnation of the long-gestating project was due to star Pierce Brosnan and be directed by Martin Campbell.

Camara’s previous credits include starring roles in the Pedro Almodovar films Talk to Her, Bad Education and I’m So Excited. He also starred in the television series 7 Vidas.