Kurylenko Will Star In The Film About Opus Dei

Ukrainian actress and model Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) is going to star in “There Be Dragons”, the film about Opus Dei movement. She will act a part of a young Hungarian woman fighting alongside the Republicans in the International Brigades.

The film is based on the life of Spaniard Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the sainted founder of the influential Roman Catholic conservative organization Opus Dei. He is also famous for his backing Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War and allegedly spoke positively of Adolf Hitler. The church dismissed the controversies before Escriva was canonized as a saint by John Paul II.

The film is directed by Ronald Joffe, an acclaimed British film director who has twice been nominated for Oscars, including for “The Mission,” which dealt with leftist Jesuit priests.  “This is not a film about Josemaria,” Joffe said, “but about human beings, with their loves, their hatreds, their mistakes – a story about the things we do to find a meaning for life.”

The project has been surrounded by rumours that it might be Opus Dei’s response to The “Da Vinci Code”, based on Dan Brown’s bestseller, which fictionally portrayed the organization at the centre of an ancient conspiracy theory.