The film began shooting on February 14 in the French capital Paris.

It is based on a script jointly written by Jean-Claude Carrière and Nahal Tajadod, and is produced by Iranian producer Mehdi Hosseini.

Carrière is an expert on Rumi and the author of “Love: The Joy That Wounds: The Love Poems of Rumi”. He has also worked with well-known filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Buñuel, Andrzej Wajda and Miloš Forman.

He was nominated for Oscar three times and once won the prize for Best Short Subject in 1963.

The film, called ‘Molana’ or ‘Rumi’ is better known in the West, will have a French and an English director.

The details of the other cast and crew involved in the project have not been announced yet.

Meanwhile, the locations where the film will be shot has been announced to include France and other European countries, as well as Central Asia such as Turkey to paint as close a picture to Rumi’s life as possible.

Rumi is known as the connecting point between poetry, mysticism and philosophy in the Persian literature. While a widely-read poet in Iran and other Persian-speaking countries, his English-translated works have also become quite popular in the West.

A two-day event, supported by Iranian Book City Institute’s Cultural Center, the Shiraz-based Center for Studies on Sadi and the University of Bologna, will be held at the Italian university on Nov. 8-9.

Renowned scholars are scheduled to deliver speeches and hold discussions on affinities between the two poets.

One of the greatest figures of classical Persian literature, Sheikh Muslih ud-Din Sadi Shirazi is famous worldwide for his Bustan (The Orchard) and Gulistan (The Rose Garden).

Petrarch was born Francesco Petrarca in Arezzo, Tuscany. He was a devoted classical scholar who is considered the “Father of Humanism”, a philosophy that helped spark the Renaissance. Petrarch’s writing includes the well-known odes to Laura.