"LITTLE ASHES"/GREAT ARTISTS

Here's a surprise. One of the latest – and most exciting – British productions to start shooting is based in Barcelona and is about the life and loves of two of Spain’s brightest lights, playwright Federico Garcia Lorca and painter Salvador Dali.

What’s so “British” about that?, you might be forgiven for asking.

Well, the director, for one thing. He is London’s Paul Morrison, who first stirred interest and an Oscar nomination with 1999’s oddity "Solomon & Gaenor" about the tragic love between a Jewish man (early days for Ioan Gruffudd) and a Welsh girl (Nia Roberts, main photo) from an anti-Semitic family at the beginning of the century. It was an oddity if only because, while it was told mostly in English, parts were in Welsh and Yiddish.

Then in 2003, Morrison offered “Wonderous Oblivion”, a 1960s tale of racial prejudice, with a cricket mad 11 year old Londoner trying to hone his skills with his new Jamaican neighbours despite the barbs of his white friends.

But it is perhaps an earlier, much less known Morrison work about another two famous aritists, Degas and Pissarro Fall Out that has clinched this most recent gig.

Other British interest in “Little Ashes” includes Robert Pattison, a Harry Potter regular as Cederic Diggery (photo above), who plays Dali opposite Javier Beltran as Lorca, and Matthew McNulty, who features in the forthcoming Joy Division biopic “Control”, as Dali’s filmmaking collaborator Luis Bunel.

The screenplay is by Brit Philippa Goslett, who has a second film, the thriller “Holy Monday”, going on location as well.

Here is the synopsis for "Little Ashes": In 1922, Madrid is wavering on the edge of change as traditional values are challenged by the dangerous new influences of Jazz, Freud and the avant-garde. Salvador Dalí arrives at university: 18 years old and determined to become a great artist. His bizarre blend of shyness and rampant exhibitionism attracts the attention of two of the university’s social elite - Federico García Lorca and Luis Buñuel.

Salvador is absorbed into their decadent group and for a time Salvador, Luis and Federico become a formidable trio, the most ultra-modern group in Madrid. However as time passes, Salvador feels an increasingly strong pull towards the charismatic Federico – who is himself oblivious of the attentions he is getting from his beautiful writer friend, Margarita. Finally, in the face of his friends’ preoccupations – and Federico’s growing renown as a poet – Luis sets off for Paris in search of his own artistic success.

Federico and Salvador spend the holiday in the sea-side town of Cadaques. Both the idyllic surroundings and the warmth of the Dalí family sweep Federico off his feet. Salvador and he draw closer, sharing their deepest beliefs, inspirations and secrets, convinced that they have found a kind of friendship undreamt of by others. It is more than a meeting of the minds; it is a fusion of souls. And then one night, in the phosphorescent water, it becomes something else…

Filed September 11, 2007