LONDON — Variety has been given exclusive access to the first-look images for Interlude in Prague, which is shooting in the Czech capital. The film, which portrays a few turbulent months in the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, stars Aneurin Barnard, James Purefoy and Samantha Barks.

Barnard, whose credits include The White Queen and War & Peace, plays the composer at a time when has been brought to Prague by the vain and self-obsessed Baron Saloka. The evil aristocrat is played by Purefoy, who was serial killer Joe Carroll in Fox’s The Following, and is a slave owner in the Roots reboot. Rising star Morfydd Clark, who appeared recently in Whit Stillman’s Love and Friendship, plays the beautiful soprano Zuzanna Luptak, who is betrothed to Saloka but falls in love with Mozart. Saloka, a psychopath, sexual predator and serial rapist, develops an overwhelming hatred that results in callous brutality and murder. Samantha Barks, whose credits include Les Miserables, is Josefa. At the start of the shoot, director John Stephenson said: “A love story and a tragedy of epic proportions, the characters, the passions, heartbreak and awful outcome could just as easily exist in a contemporary story. I intend to shoot this with fast-moving camera and use modern post-production techniques to capture the energy and atmosphere of a modern thriller. The result will be a glorious heart-in-mouth solar plexus knockout.” The film is produced by Productive International’s Huw Penallt Jones and Hannah Leader, and production design is by Luciana Arrighi. London-based Carnaby Intl. is handling worldwide sales rights for the film, and will be taking it to market at next month’s Cannes Film Festival.