Marcia Gay Harden has signed on to Michael Radford’s “Elsa & Fred” opposite Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer.
Filming began Monday in New Orleans and will take place later in Rome. Supporting cast includes Chris Noth, Jared Gilman (“Moonrise Kingdom”) James Brolin, George Segal, Wendell Pierce, Reg Rogers and Erika Alexander.
Edward Saxon is producing alongside Nicolas Veinberg, Matthias Ehrenberg, Ricardo Kleinbaum and Jose Levy. Aaron Gilbert, Angel Losada Moreno, Osvaldo Rios, Carsten Lorenz and Rob Weston are executive producing.
Financing has been packaged by Cuatro Plus Films, Defiant Pictures, Rio Negro Producciones (Mexico), Sisung Film Finance and Media House Capital.
The film, centering on two older people who fall in love late in life, is an English language remake of Marcos Carnevale’s 2005 Spanish-Argentine film, “Elsa & Fred,” Radford wrote the adaptation, along with his writing partner Anna Pavignano (“Casomai,” “Il Postino”).
In the 2005 film, Fred was a recently widowed Spaniard in his 70s who has led a quiet life and retires to an apartment in Madrid with Elsa — an Argentinian and a chronic liar — as his neighbor.
