ATHENS (AFP) — Grizzled US actor Nick Nolte becomes a wandering mystic in "Arcadia Lost", a coming-of-age drama shot in the mountains of Arcadia in the Peloponnese in Greece, organisers said on Tuesday.
The low-budget movie is directed by Phedon Papamichael, the Greek-American cinematographer of "Sideways", "Walk the Line" and "W", the upcoming Oliver Stone biopic of President George W. Bush.
Nolte plays a vagabond living in the Greek wilderness who mentors two American teenagers after their parents die in a road accident whilst on vacation in Greece.
"It's a mystical story...a movie that takes place in parallel realities. It's almost like a trip to the underworld," Papamichael told a news conference in Athens.
Locations include the rugged Mani peninsula in the Peloponnese, Mount Parnassos in central Greece and the River Mornos Reservoir where receding water levels brought a submerged village to light.
"We had the opportunity to expose new parts of Greece to a foreign audience," the Los Angeles-based director and cinematographer said.
The film was originally supposed to be shot in India but was rewritten for a Greek setting after Indian authorities failed to back the project.
Nolte's character is based on a German vagrant who lived in a cave near the Arcadian town of Leonidio where Papamichael spent his holidays as a youth.
The film's release has been tentatively slated for spring 2009.
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