Having already starred in conflict movies including Michael Collins, Schlinder’s List and new BBC drama Five Minutes In Heaven, Ulster actor Liam Neeson is set for Sarajevo to make a film on the Balkans War.

The Ballymena man will star alongside Orlando Bloom in the new movie based on Bill Carter’s book Fools Rush In.

The yet untitled film will be shot on location in Sarajevo and is understood to have the support of the city’s Mayor.

Oscar-winner Javier Bardem is in talks for a supporting role. Brazilian Andrucha Waddington will direct.

The movie will focus on Carter’s time as an aid worker in Sarajevo during the bitter Balkans war that lasted 43 months.

Carter previously made Miss Sarajevo, a documentary produced by U2’s frontman Bono and the late Italian tenor Pavarotti.

Carter became an aid worker following the death of his girlfriend in a car crash.

While working in Sarajevo, he managed to interview Bono for the local television station and the two became friends. The people of Sarajevo were given a chance to tell their story to the world via satellite link-ups to U2’s Zoo TV Tour concerts.

Carter made Miss Sarajevo in 1995 and Bono wrote a song by the same title as the soundtrack. Miss Sarajevo won the International Monitor Award, Golden Hugo Award and Maverick Director Award, at Newport Beach Festival.

Earlier this year Neeson was back home in Northern Ireland shooting another conflict drama, Five Minutes In Heaven. Also starring James Nesbitt, it centres on the 17-year-old UVF member Alistair Little, who murdered 19-year-old Catholic Jim Griffin in 1975. The murder was witnessed by Griffin’s 11-year-old brother Joe.

The drama is expected to be aired on BBC1 next year.