"Gael is one of the most exciting actors working today. He´s my dream choice for the part of Tom, the film´s young and hugely successful internet visionary", said the world acclaimed Swedish filmmaker.
Co-producer Vibeke Windelov brokered the deal with Gael Garcia Bernal's agent Elyse Scherz (Endeavor Agency) on behalf of the main Swedish production company Memfis Film. Bernal has worked with many acclaimed international filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar (Bad Education), Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries), Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep) and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel). He is currently filming Fernando Meirelles' Blindness with Julianne Moore and will next be seen in Hector Babenco´s El Pasado.
In Mammoth, Bernal will play Tom, a young IT golden boy living in New York with his wife, 8 year-old daughter and the Filipino nanny Gloria. On a business trip to Thailand, Tom realizes that he wants to change his life.
Moodysson's usual production partner Lars Jönsson of Memfis Film said: "We´re in the final stages of casting and pre-production in Asia and the US and the sets are being built in Trollhättan, Sweden. It´s fantastic to see it all come together".
With a reported SEK 70m budget, Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth is his most ambitious project to date. The Swedish/German/Danish film is co-produced by Zentropa Berlin and Zentropa Entertainments in Denmark.
Apart from Nordisk Film & TV Fond, other financiers include Film i Väst, SVT, TV2 Denmark, Medienboard Berlin, the Swedish Film Institute, the Danish Film Institute and Eurimages. International sales are handled by Trust Film Sales who started pre-selling the project at the last Cannes Film Festival.