Reports have emerged that Knight of Cups director Terrence Malick has set up his next project: a study of an Austrian second world war conscientious objector featuring the German actor August Diehl, best known for Inglourious Basterds and The Counterfeiters.

According to the Film Stage, the funding body Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg has given €400,000 (£307,000) to the project, currently entitled Radegund. It will tell the story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer who refused to take on combat duties after being conscripted into the Wehrmacht in 1943. He was immediately arrested and executed by guillotine later in the same year at the age of 36. A practising Catholic, Jägerstätter was born and is buried in the Austrian village St Radegund, named after the sixth-century German princess and saint – hence the film title.

Radegund is due to start shooting at Studio Babelsberg, in Potsdam, later this year. Malick has finally completed production on his most recent film, the Texas-set Weightless, which features Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. No release date for Weightless has been set. Malick’s Imax documentary Voyage of Time is due in cinemas in October.