EXCLUSIVE: Matt Smith (House Of The Dragon) and Imogen Poots (Chronology Of Water) are attached to star in mystery-thriller The Salamander Lives Twice, which Embankment Films has boarded for sales ahead of the Cannes market.

House Of The Dragon and Doctor Who Smith will play a “debonair stranger who washes ashore on a remote island wearing a Rolex and holding a briefcase he can’t open, with no memory of who he is or why he is there. Taken in by the sole inhabitants – Iris, a glamorous wine-soaked matriarch, her erudite daughter Goggy (Poots) and Baby, their giant naked butler – he is drawn into their bizarre and decaying world. But this is no accident. And what begins as sanctuary turns into something far stranger, far darker – a world of pent-up revenge, sinister family betrayal and shocking violence”.

The film reunites writer Toby Harvard and director Ant Timpson for their third project after Bookworm and Come to Daddy.