The film marks the feature film debut of Bulgarian director Dimitar Mitovski who was twice in competition in Cannes with his short films.

The production companies are Bulgaria's Sia ltd (http://sia.bg) (producer Ivan Doykov) and the Új Budapest Filmstudio (www.ujbudapestfilmstudio.hu) (managing director Laszlo Kantor). Producer Mike Downey is expected to take partipate as part of the Macedonian co-production team.

The movie received €170,000 in support from the Eurimages Fund in December. The estimated budget of the movie is in the range of €1.1 to 1.2 million. Two-thirds of the budget will come from Bulgaria and one-third from Hungary and Macedonia.

Filming will take 33-35 days, with locations still to be announced for the London-set story.

The story is based on the novel "Mission: London" written by essayist and scriptwriter Alek Popov's first novel about his experiences as a Cultural Attaché at the Bulgarian Embassy in the U.K.

"The screenwriting phase started two years ago. In Sofia there will be a meeting about the movie during the 13thSofia International Film Festival, and we'll finalize things there," Kantor said. "The composer and set designer will be Hungarian as well as an actor," he added. The world sale rights of the film are under negotiation.

The release date of Mission London will be no earlier than December, 2009, or the beginning of 2010.