Paul Verhoeven knows a thing or two about courting controversy with his films, though he usually has some deeper meaning to it all. Following on from the award-winning Elle he has lined up a new French-language film, Blessed Virgin.
And the new film finds him teaming up for several people from his last effort, as producer Said Ben Said is shepherding the project (and has tweeted out a NSFW teaser poster for the movie), while actress Virginie Efira, who had a role in Elle, will star.
Verhoeven has regular collaborator Gerard Soeteman adapting Judith C. Brown's academic work Immodest Acts: The Life Of A Lesbian Nun In Renaissance Italy to follow the story of 17th century abbess Benedetta Carlini. She joined a convent in Tuscan town Pescia as a child, and rose up the ranks on the back of tales of visions and the apparent rise of stigmata on her body. An investigation discredited her claims and she was ostracised by the church when evidence arose of affairs with some of her fellow nuns. Still, there has been a lot of academic debate over the real reason for her downfall.
The rights to this one will be on sale at the Cannes Film Market next month, but there's no word yet on when Verhoeven will start shooting.