Kazakh-based SkyProduction, Ukrainian producer center Insight Media and the Odesa film studio have begun preparations for the filming of a full-length Ukrainian-Kazakh film about Ukrainian poet and artist Taras Shevchenko, titled "Tarazi. Bidding a Farewell to the Desert."

The production of this historical drama will take place in Odesa region (Ukraine) and Mangystau region (Kazakhstan) in 2016," SkyProduction's press service told Interfax-Kazakhstan.

"The large-scale project whose budget is UAH 44.8 million (about KZT 600 million) will be ready for the screen in autumn 2017," the company said. The current KZT-USD rate is KZT345.8 per 1USD.

Oleksandr Denysenko is the producer and script writer of the film.

The project will involve Kazakh actors, who will play some key roles like the Kazakh girl Katya, who inspired the famous Ukrainian artist and was painted by Shevchenko on one of his works. Kazakh actors will also play an old man and a dervish whom the Ukrainian poet met in Kazakhstan.

Currently, the search is under way for the starring actor, who can be either a Ukrainian citizen or any other actor who speaks the Ukrainian language, the press service said.

The film tells about Taras Shevchenko's life during his military service in Fort Novopetrovsky (Mangyshlak, or Mangystau now). According to the official synopsis of the project, the main developments take place in summer 1857, during the last three months of Shevchenko's exile, which lasted for about 10 years in the service in the Russian imperial army as a private.

Local natural landscapes will be filmed in Kazakhstan, SkyProduction said. The filming period there will be "compact enough, not more than 14 days," they said. "Our task is to show the historical sites – the mausoleum, the cemetery, an underground mosque, round stones, and the white rock. The script shows the real historical places where events took place," the press service said.