Leading ladies set for war drama

Natalie Portman and Penelope Cruz are set to join forces in a Second World War epic romance.

The Hollywood press says the duo will appear in Head In The Clouds, which begins filming in December in Paris and Montreal under the direction of John Duignan.

The independent film features a young Cambridge student named Guy Penrose (Jay Rodan) and budding fashion photographer Gilda Besse (Portman).

Their relationship is severed when he heads to Spain to fight fascism but they are reunited later when she puts her life on the line for him. Cruz plays a gypsy who is befriended and taken in by Gilda.

Head In The Clouds is set in Paris in the years leading up to the war and culminates in the liberation of the city in 1944.

Star Wars actress Portman will make the film after completing Anthony Minghella’s war drama Cold Mountain. She then stars with Scrubs actor Zach Braff in Large’s Ark.