Franka Potente is to play the lead role in Volker Schloendorff's "Pope Joan", Constantin Film's long-gestating adaptation of Donna Woolfolk Cross' best-selling novel.
Potente will play Johanna von Ingelheim, a 9th century woman of English extraction born in the German city of Mainz. When her older brother dies in a Viking attack, the brilliant young Joan assumes his identity and enters a Benedictine monastery where, as Brother John Anglicus, she distinguishes herself as a scholar and healer.
Eventually drawn to Rome, she soon becomes enmeshed in a dangerous mix of powerful passion and explosive politics that threatens her life even as it elevates her to the highest throne in the Western world - that of the Pope.
Shooting is expected to begin in May 2007. Ufa Film is planning both a theatrical film cut as well as a two-part television version for broadcast.
