JOFFE MAKES CONTROVERSIAL OPUS DEI MOVIE

Top Hollywood director Roland Joffe, who was nominated for an Oscar for his Jesuit priests drama The Mission, has turned his attention to the Roman Catholic Church's most controversial members.
The British-born film maker, who was also nominated for a best director Oscar for his intense movie The Killing Fields in 1985, is in Argentina making a biographical picture about the founder of Catholic cult Opus Dei.
Josemaria Escriva sided with Spanish dictator Francisco Franco during the country's civil war.
He was also accused by former Opus Dei member Father Vladimir Feltzman of speaking positively of German World War II leader Adolf Hitler even though Escriva repeatedly condemned Nazi ideology.
The Catholic church dismissed criticism of Escriva before he was canonised as a saint by Pope John Paul II.
Joffe knows his latest film will come under scrutiny because of the subject but insists that it is not meant as a response to The Da Vinci Code, in which the bad guys were members of the Opus Dei movement.
The director's 1986 The Mission, which starred Robert De Nero, Jeremy Irons and Aidan Quinn, dealt with 18th century leftist Spanish Jesuit priests trying to protect a remote South American Indian tribe in danger of falling under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal.
Now 63-year-old Joffe is back in South America making There Be Dragons, which is partly being financed by Opus Dei members.
Joffe is adamant that the film is not a propaganda project.
Opus Dei members on the set say the director has "creative space" to make the film he wants.
The city of Lujan near Buenos Aires is standing in for 1930s Madrid in the movie, whose cast includes 26-year-old English actor Charlie Cox as Escriva and the latest Bond girl, Olga Kurylenko.
Joffe will tell Escriva's story through the eyes of a young journalist who investigates the Opus Dei founder – a friend of his estranged dying father - while he is a candidate for canonisation.
The journalist uncovers the complicated relationship between Escriva and his father from childhood through the horrors of the Spanish Civil War in the action packed movie.
The star-studded film also includes Dougray Scott, Derek Jacobi, Charles Dance, Wes Bentley and Geraldine Chaplin.