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‘The Irishman’ Producer Gaston Pavlovich Joins ‘Earth’s’ Sophokles Tasioulis on ‘The Hague’ (EXCLUSIVE)

John Hopewell
·2 min read

Gaston Pavlovich, famed for producing Martin Scorsese’s “Silence” and “The Irishman,” is joining Sophokles Tasioulis, producer of Terrence Malick’s “Voyage of Time,” to produce “The Hague.”

The feature is set up at Tasioulis’ Sophisticated Films banner in Germany and Pavlovich’s Mexico-based international production banner Fábrica de Cine.

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“The Hague” is based on a story and treatment by Ilan Ziv, an Israeli who fought as a young man in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, before becoming a documentary director whose “Capitalism,” a six-part series, was broadcast on Franco-German broadcaster Arte.

In active development, the producers are currently discussing the script adaptation with several top writers. With a screenplay underway, the film is scheduled to go into production in 2022, shooting in multiple European and original locations.

The Hague’s International Criminal Court is best known for bringing to justice and indicting African war criminals such as the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Thomas Lubanga Dyilo.

In “The Hague,” a movie that Tasioulis calls a “hard-hitting” political thriller, the ICC will train its attention on the Middle East.

The courtroom prosecution featured in “The Hague” will capture “the variety of competing individual perspectives and agendas that mirror the complicated nature of attempting to administer justice on a global scale,” the film’s synopsis runs.

At the heart of the story, the producers said in a press statement on Friday, is “the personal dilemma and the complex web of emotions and contradictions that history imposes on people who had the ‘bad luck’ to be born in the ‘wrong’ moment of history, where their own society and country is put on trial.”

“As perceptions around justice permeate our everyday conversation, this is a timely story that mirrors real-world issues facing the Hague,” Pavlovich said.

He added: “Most importantly, at its essence, it is a human story that seeks to bring an audience into the multiple competing perspectives and backgrounds that frame differing views of justice.”

The story is aimed at a global audience and first and foremost entertains, Tasioulis added. It also, however, “personalizes and emotionalizes a political conflict we all think to know from the ever-present news coverage. It asks the question: Can one person make history change direction with an individual act of courage?”

The producers have received preliminary approvals to shoot inside The ICC at the Hague.

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