Emma Watson to star in film based on true story in Chile

Actress Emma Watson during an appearance at the United Nations last week. | Edwardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images.

Continuing to move away from her “Harry Potter” days, Emma Watson has just been cast opposite Daniel Bruhl in a film by Oscar-winning director Florian Gallenberger.

The film, titled “Colonia,” is based on the true story about a young couple who find themselves swept up in the dangerous poltical events surrounding the military coup in Chile in 1973. Bruhl, a frequent collaborator with Gallenberger, plays a man kidnapped by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s secret police — and taken to a place called Colonia Dignidad, a compound where no one ever leaves alive. Watson will play his wife, who goes there to help him escape.

Gallenberger won an Academy Award in 2000 for his short film, “I Want to Be.”

Principal photography on “Colonia” is scheduled to begin this winter in Europe and South America.