CAMERAS ARE READY TO ROLL ON ROBERT GRAVES FILM

By Humphrey Carter THE love life of the famous war poet and Deya resident Robert Graves, is to be turned into a film shot partly on location in Majorca. The American company behind the production has been developing the project for some four years and the family of the late Robert Graves, who is buried in Deya, have been assisting on the development of the script. The film Poetic Reason will centre on the 1920*s menage a trois between Graves, his wife Nancy and mistress Laura Riding. Graves left England for Majorca with Riding, an American writer who was the inspiration behind some of Graves's most famous works including Goodbye To All That and I, Claudius. Later, however, she left him for another man. The Graves family still live in Deya and his grave is visited by thousands of lovers of his work every year. British actor James Purefoy (pictured), star of A Knights Tale and Resident Evil has been cast to play Robert Graves. Actress Frances O'Connor, who starred in Steven Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence: AI and co-starred with Purefoy in Mansfield Park will play the American writer Riding. The film is being billed as “a tale of sexual jealousy and obsession” and is due for release later next year. Filming set to start as soon as the production company gives the green light. Robert Graves's wife will be played by Lesley Mansfield who was last seen in Mike Leigh's All Or Nothing. The film will be directed by American William Nuñez and Majorca's Mediterranean production company Palma Pictures, which carried out all the preliminary location scouting and project development in Majorca, is waiting for the green light to start rolling on the production in earnest. However, it still remains undecided just how much of the film will be shot on location in Majorca. In the meantime, Palma Pictures are working on two other feature film productions, also due to be shot next year. Apart from the American Savage Grace production involving Julianne Moore, Palma Pictures' production director Mike Day said yesterday that they are also working with a British production which is also planning to shoot in Majorca early next year. Taste of Paradise will be based on Ernest Hemingway's Garden of Eden.