Martin Scorsese's 'Silence' to wrap in Taiwan

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who is in the final few days of shooting "Silence" -- historical drama about faith and religion, will finish the film's production here. Some 14 weeks of photography will be completed by May 15 here.

Scorsese spoke about the long journey of making the film, based on Shusaku Endo's novel "Silence" about god's silence in the face of human suffering, at a press event here on Monday, reports variety.com.

Scorsese prepared a draft of the screenplay of the film in 1992, but said that the origins were deeper still.

"The subject matter presented by Shusaku Endo was in my life since I was very, very young. I was very much involved in religion, I was raised in a strong Catholic family," Scorsese said.

While the book is set in 17th century Japan, Scorsese located the production in Taiwan, following an introduction by Ang Lee. It was entirely shot in the territory with various locations in Taipei (Yangmingshan, CMPC Studio and the Beitou area), as well as Taichung and Hualien.

"Silence", which stars Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield and Japanese star Asano Tadanobu, has received subsidy and production support from the Taipei City Government and Taipei Film Commission, and was partly financed by Catchplay, which is the film's distributor in Taiwan.