sai17

Andy Garcia has stepped into the shoes of Georgia's maverick president, Mikheil Saakashvili, for a Hollywood thriller set against the backdrop of the 2008 conflict between Russia and the former Soviet republic.



Directed by Die Hard 2's Renny Harlin, the picture began shooting at the weekend on location in Georgia. It is billed as an anti-war film about an American journalist and his cameraman who get caught in the crossfire and struggle with their duty to be impartial.

Garcia, whose credits include The Godfather: Part III and Ocean's Eleven, arrived in Georgia on Sunday as shooting moved from the former Russian-held town of Gori to the capital, Tbilisi. Harlin says the film – provisionally entitled Georgia – will be impartial, even though Papuna Davitaia, an MP from Saakashvili's ruling United National Movement, is one of the producers on the project.

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Meanwhile, Serbian film-maker Emir Kusturica revealed yesterday that he had rejected a Russian offer to direct a separate film about the war. "I didn't accept it because I have a binding contract for the next four years," he told Reuters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/20/andy-garcia-saakashvili-georgia