BBC News Online: Entertainment: Film

Ethiopian farmers 'hit the big screen'

Ethiopia still depends to some extent on food aid

Production company Lions Gate International screen-tested 12 indigenous artists in Ethiopia to play five characters in the big-budget film, the business weekly Fortune reported.

Namibia was chosen as the film's setting for Ethiopia's 1980s famine because of its road infrastructure and proximity to South Africa, which has the necessary support system for camera equipment used by Hollywood.

The film sees Costner play an international medical relief worker opposite Jolie's high-society woman drawn into areas in need of humanitarian aid.

Beyond Borders is still in progress, and is directed in part by Oliver Stone, famed for Born on the Fourth of July and Natural Born Killers, and Martin Campbell, whose recent films include The Mask of Zorro and Vertical Limit.

Kenya was initially selected as the location for parts of the film, but it was ruled out for security reasons, Fortune said.

Fortune added that the Ethiopian participants would stay for six weeks in Namibia.

Scenes concerning warfare in Chechnya and Cambodia are to be shot "somewhere in Canada".