Love epic to film in Figueres

It is un­likely that the coun­ties of Girona have ever seen such a large con­cen­tra­tion of film shoots in such a short space of time. Al­most no time after film­ing of the sec­ond part of Ocho apel­li­dos vas­cos ended –in dif­fer­ent areas of Baix Em­pordà and Girona– and with the im­mi­nent ar­rival of HBO's hit TV se­ries Game of Thrones at the be­gin­ning of Sep­tem­ber, an­other Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tion has picked Alt Em­pordà as a film­ing lo­ca­tion for a pro­duc­tion in the style of Ri­d­ley Scott epic, Ex­o­dus.

Specif­i­cally, The Promise will be shot in Sant Fer­ran cas­tle in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber, fea­tur­ing Bat­man Be­gins star, Chris­t­ian Bale, as well as Oscar Isaac, the actor who came to promi­nence in the Coen broth­ers film, In­side Llewyn Davis, who will also star in the up­com­ing in­stal­ments of the Star Wars saga and X-Men: Apoc­a­lypse.

Under the di­rec­tion of Brit Terry George (Hotel Rwanda and Reser­va­tion road) the film tells the story of a love tri­an­gle that takes place in the dying days of the Ot­toman Em­pire at the be­gin­ning of the 20th cen­tury. The Turk­ish em­pire, which ex­pe­ri­enced its golden age and max­i­mum ex­pan­sion in the 16th and 17th cen­turies, ran out of steam and fi­nally dis­ap­peared after the First World War, to be re­placed by the Re­pub­lic of Turkey.

Ac­cord­ing to the pres­ti­gious en­ter­tain­ment mag­a­zine, Va­ri­ety, the plot of the film fo­cuses on Michael, a bril­liant med­ical stu­dent who finds him­self mired in a three-way re­la­tion­ship in which he com­petes for the af­fec­tions of Ana with re­porter, Chris. How­ever, it seems that Michael is held back from pur­su­ing the ob­ject of his af­fec­tions by the con­flict be­tween his pas­sion and his ad­her­ence to old world tra­di­tions.

With a script by Robin Swicord (Matilda, Mem­o­ries of a Geisha), pro­duc­tion will be by Sur­vival Pic­tures and Ba­bieka Films, the lat­ter being re­spon­si­ble for the afore men­tioned Ex­o­dus, as well as To­mor­row­land –filmed in Va­len­cia– and the Span­ish film, Los Fan­tas­mas de Goya. The pro­duc­tion com­pany is also in charge of the film's cast­ing in Spain, with shoot­ing also due to take place in Avila, Segovia, Madrid, the Ca­nary Is­lands and Navarra. Given that the parts of the film to be shot in Girona will take place in Sant Fer­ran cas­tle, it is highly likely that they will fea­ture war scenes.