Editor's note: See the Political Affairs interview with Padura here.

HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 24 (acn) Cuban writer Leonardo Padura said he’s now working on a script of two stories for a film entitled Siete dias en La Habana (Seven Days in Havana), along with directors Benicio del Toro and Juan Carlos Tabio.

Now teaching courses at a Spanish university, the Cuban novelist announced that the film’s shooting has been scheduled for next year, the El Pais newspaper reports.

Under Morena Films Productions, the film is composed of seven shorts, in which six foreign directors will take part as well as Tabio, who is the project’s host.

Laurent Cantet is another of the filmmakers who have announced their participation in the film.

During a visit to Havana a few months ago, the director of La clase (The Class), the winner of the Palma de Oro Prize of the 2008 Cannes Festival, said that he will direct one of the plots making up the movie.

Recently, Padura told a newspaper from Cantabria that the French producer liked his story so much that he will shoot a feature film in the near future.

According to El Pais newspaper, the Cuban writer also revealed that an important US producer and director has expressed his interest in adapting to cinema his series of detective stories, which have Mario Conde as their investigator.

The author of El hombre que amaba los perros (The Man who Loved Dogs) preferred not to disclose the name, since for 12 years now he has been longing to see one of his works adapted to the big screen.

Leonardo Padura, a graduate of Philosophy and a journalist, has won several important prizes during his career as a writer, like the Novel Prize of the Cuban Association of Writers and Artists and the internationals Cafe Gijon and Hammett.

From the Cuban News Agency

Photo: Leonardo Padura.