Film of cannibal's life planned

GERMANY’S cannibal killer Armin Meiwes has given his approval to a film production company to bring his story to the big screen.

His Heart in My Brain is the working title of the film, which is being partly sponsored with public money. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia has agreed a 14,000 grant to director Rosa von Praunheim because it likes his films.

Meiwes, 42 - sentenced in January to eight and a half years for mutilating, killing and eating Jrgen Brandes, also 42, a computer programmer - still hopes that Hollywood is interested in his story. It is unclear if Meiwes will benefit financially from the German deal.

Meiwes, who met many people through the internet who said they wanted to be eaten, killed Brandes in his lonely farmhouse home near the city of Kassel nearly three years ago. He stored his flesh in parcels in his deep freeze and ate parts of him every day.

His trial was a journey through a sub-culture of cannibalism and homosexuality that experts say spans the globe.

Meiwes is waiting to hear when prosecutors will secure a new hearing about his sentence. They appealed because they said it was inadequate given that a man died at his hands.

Filming for His Heart in My Brain will begin in December in Berlin, taking in places where Brandes, who lived in the suburb of Spandau, frequented.

Mr von Praunheim said: "I won’t be telling the exact story but one very similar. The theme of cannibalism has fascinated me for 20 years."

The Film Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia said it gave a grant to Mr von Praunheim "because his films are always worth it".

But the conservative politician Axel Wintermeyer said: "It will only serve as a monument to a perverse criminal."