Director Michael Haneke to film in French migrant hotspot Calais

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, two-time winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, will soon begin shooting a movie touching on the migrants issue around the northern French port of Calais, local officials said Wednesday.

Haneke and his team scouted the area in recent weeks with a view to start filming "Happy End" in early 2016, said Pictanovo, a group that organises financing for films in the region.

Northern France has already made headlines in Hollywood this week after it was announced that blockbuster director Christopher Nolan, who made the recent Batman trilogy and "Interstellar", would soon film a World War II movie in Dunkirk.

Nolan's movie about the legendary evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk is due to start filming in May.

In recent years, thousands of migrants and refugees have ended up in squalid camps around the port in Calais as they try to make their way to Britain.

A spokesman for Pictanovo said migrants would not be the subject of Haneke's movie, but would be "evoked and integrated in the issues of the film".

Haneke recently joined over 5,000 other film professionals, including actress Juliette Binoche and director Costa-Gavras, in calling for a more robust response to the refugee crisis from Europe.

"Happy End" will reunite stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Isabelle Huppert from his last, Oscar-nominated, film "Amour".

He is one of very few directors to twice win the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival -- for "Amour" in 2012 and "The White Ribbon" in 2009.