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Exclusive: Renaissance action film is being represented by Fortitude at this week’s Efm.

Game Of Thrones mainstay Peter Dinklage will star opposite Alexander Skarsgard as a Machiavellian right-hand man in $14m renaissance action film The Dwarf.

Brad Anderson, renowned for his work on edgy fare like The Machinist, Transsiberian and The Call, is on board to direct from a screenplay he wrote with Lyn Vaus.

Production is scheduled to commence in July in Italy on the project that Fortitude International has introduced to international buyers at the European Film Market (Efm).

Dinklage will play a fearless man who proves his mettle and earns the trust of a prince after he conquers an all-time wrestling champion in a contest.

Once he has jockeyed for position next to the seat of power, the dwarf pledges his undying loyalty and resorts to assassinations and subterfuge in his merciless quest to protect his new master.

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A young woman flees her physically abusive mate, taking the first flight out of Buffalo to Los Angeles, where she lands with a thud and luckily is befriended by a one-of-a-kind handler of pooches that belong to rich folk living in the hills. A promising debut by writer-director Jacques Thelemaque, "The Dogwalker" is one of those rare outsider-comes-to-L.A. films that captures the city's smoggy human atmosphere of promise and abandon -- and isolation -- without being preachy.

Not to be confused with a 1999 indie comedy of the same name directed by Paul Duran, "Dogwalker" benefits greatly from the lead performances by Diane Galdry and Pamela Gordon ("Chuck & Buck"). As bashed and stoned Ellie, Galdry says a lot without actually having much memorable dialogue. Her character's unreliableness, particularly after Gordon's Betsy -- angrily distrustful but physically deteriorating -- gives her a chance to work and live almost normally, is not the stuff saints are made of. But this is a tale of women who don't fit into the mold of model wives and girlfriends.

Indeed, Ellie and Betsy share the unfortunate experience of men who are physically violent. The latter, it is revealed, has a reputation as a wife who killed her husband. While Ellie does not learn kickboxing or train for the big showdown, it does eventually happen, without straining credibility too much, and she gets the satisfaction of giving her rabid nemesis (Alan Gelfant) a righteous pummeling.

Other characters in the canine-centric milieu include a pet "channeler" (Lyn Vaus), a dog psychic Lisa Jane Persky) and a starlet (Kerry Bishop) whose four-legged baby is lost by -- as Betsy calls her -- Ellie the "useless pothead punching bag." But even cynical, fading demigods like Betsy have hearts, and Ellie starts to see the benefits of stability and an improving sense of self-worth.

Founders of the producing Filmmakers Alliance, Thelemaque and Gaidry are married in real life, and she's a bona fide dogwalker. Rather than being self-indulgent or pretentious, however, the film comes up with many believable details and changes in direction that enrich the bittersweet central relationship of the two leads. It doesn't hurt having an irresistible pack of furry supporting characters who try, and manage a few times, to steal their scenes.

THE DOGWALKER

Filmmakers Alliance

Credits:

Screenwriter-director: Jacques Thelemaque

Producers: Linda L. Miller, Hilary Six, Jacques Thelemaque

Executive producers: David Diaan, Thoms Gaidry

Director of photography: Marco Fargnoli

Production designers: Joe Warson, Robert Lalibertere

Editor: Jeff Orgill

Costume designer: Claudia Coleman

Music: Joel Diamond

Cast:

Ellie: Diane Galdry

Betsy: Pamela Gordon

Walter: Lyn Vaus

Alyson: Lisa Jane Persky

Glen: Alan Gelfant

Dave: John Nielsen

Amanda Singer: Kerry Bishop

Running time -- 99 minutes

No MPAA rating...

There's no arguing with success, and the magician team of Siegfried & Roy is nothing if not successful. The pair constitutes the highest grossing act in Las Vegas history, raking in millions of dollars every year at the Mirage Hotel. Now the Teutonic duo is trying to conquer another medium, the big screen, and its "Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box" should be its biggest trick yet, snaring large audiences who don't have the inclination or money to travel to Vegas. For all their sleight of hand, however, the film is an often cheesy, less-than-thrilling account of the two men's lives and careers that will garner less critical than commercial response.

"The Magic Box", far from being a compendium of Siegfried and Roy's spectacular illusions, is actually more of a biopic, concentrating on the pair's childhood years, their initial meeting and early careers. Although snippets from their act are seen, most of the contemporary footage depicts the pair frolicking around their legendary Vegas estate, "Little Bavaria", with the myriad of beautiful lions and tigers they keep as pets.

Their backstory is too good to have been made up. Both grew up in Germany, where Siegfried started performing magic tricks as a child. Roy was an animal lover from the beginning and was actually rescued from death by quicksand by his pet, a half-dog, half-wolf named Hexe. The pair met up on an ocean liner, where Siegfried was working as a magician and Roy was a waiter, his cabinmate a pet cheetah (it must have been a very liberal company). Siegfried's act wasn't working too well, Roy suggested the addition of his cheetah, and voila, a legendary showbiz partnership was born.

These events are dramatized in hokey and unconvincing fashion, the story supposedly being told to a pair of young boys who sneak backstage, but the fun of the film lies in the excerpts from the duo's act -- performed on a spectacularly lavish stage setting -- in the close-up views of their estate and large animal menagerie, and in their spectacularly (not to mention suspiciously) well-preserved visages. The 3-D effects are used very effectively, with a good chunk of the film set on a surreal backdrop created with superb digital computer effects. Anthony Hopkins lends his gorgeously modulated voice for the narration, the oh-so-serious tone of which is more suitable for a documentary about the Dalai Lama than a Vegas magic act.

SIEGFRIED & ROY: THE MAGIC BOX

IMAX Ltd.

An L-Squared Entertainment Production

in association with Lexington Road Prods.

and Foundry Film Partners

Director: Brett Leonard

Screenplay: Lyn Vaus, Brett Leonard

Producer: Michael V. Lewis

Executive producers: Lou Gonda, Jon Ein, Robert Greenhut, Bernie Yuman

Co-producer: Jini Dayaneni

Director of photography: Sean MacLeod Phillips

Editor: Jonathan P. Shaw

Production designer: Steve Suchman

Music: Alan Silvestri

Color/Stereo

Cast:

Siegfried Fischbacher: Himself

Roy Uwe Ludwig Horn: Himself

Narrator: Anthony Hopkins

Teen Siegfried: John Summers

Teen Roy: Andrew Dunlap

Young Siegfried: Dillon McEwin

Young Roy: Cameron Alexander

Running time -- 40 minutes

No MPAA rating...