Stars come out
to help make
Damien film
A Belgian film company has began
By Mary Adamski
on-location work at Kalaupapa
Star-BulletinTop movie names are in Hawaii to make a feature film on Father Damien DeVeuster, the 19th century priest who ministered to leprosy patients at Kalaupapa.
The cast includes Peter O'Toole, Kris Kristofferson, Derek Jacobi, Leo McKern, Alice Krige and young Australian actor David Wenham in the title role.
Filming began yesterday at Kalaupapa, the remote Molokai peninsula that was set aside as a place of banishment when leprosy became epidemic in 1865. Several former patients, who continued to live there after mandatory isolation ended in 1969, are working as extras in the film.
Dutch Australian Paul Cox is director. The screenplay is by Academy Award-winning John Briley, whose work includes "Gandhi" and "Cry Freedom."
"Everyone who read the script was excited," said producer Tharsi Vanhuysse of Brussels-based ERA Films. He and co-producer Grietje Lammertyn started the project in 1995, the year Damien was beatified by the Catholic Church in Belgium, his homeland. The screenplay is based on a Damien biography by Belgian author Hilde Eynikel.
"It was so very important from the beginning that we have been looking for the correct actors, not looking at the name just to have the name," Vanhuysse said last night.
Vanhuysse said the budget is more than $10 million. The English-language film will be distributed internationally.
O'Toole, star of "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Lion in Winter," will play British nurse William Williamson.
British Shakespearean actor Jacobi, seen in the "Cadfael" and "I, Claudius" series, plays Damien's foe, Father Fouesnel.
Kris Kristofferson, whose films include made-in-Hawaii "Blood and Orchids" and "Fire Down Below," is Rudolph Meyer, Damien's friend.
South African actress Alice Krige, who starred in "Star Trek: First Contact" and "Sleepwalkers," will portray Mother Marianne Cope, whose company of Franciscan nuns joined Damien shortly before his death in 1889.
Britisher Leo McKern, known to Americans from "Rumpole of the Bailey" public television mystery series, will depict Honolulu Bishop Maigret.
The cast also includes Kate Ceberano as Liliuokalani, who visited Kalaupapa while her brother, Kalakaua, was king. Jan Decleir, lead in two Oscar-winning Dutch films, plays another Damien detractor, Monsignor Kockemann. Canadian Aden Young, who acted in "Black Robe," and American actor Tom Wilkinson are also in the cast.
Gov. Ben Cayetano said, "The film is meaningful for its depiction of an important person and era in Hawaii's history.
"The film is also significant for our economy. In the next few months, it will mean jobs and incomes for our residents. In the longer run, as the film is shown to worldwide audiences, it will showcase Hawaii's scenery, culture and history," he said in a release.
The National Park Service, the state Department of Health and the Patient's Advisory Council have collaborated in organizing Kalaupapa resources for the filming, which will continue into August.
