Oscar-winning actress Rachel Weisz is to play historian Deborah Lipstadt in a film of her epic legal clash with the Hitler apologist David Irving.

Irving unsuccessfully sued the American academic for libel in the High Court for calling him a Holocaust denier in 2000, when his reputation was shredded in a damning judgment.

Shooting for Denial, which is based on a script by leading playwright David Hare, is expected to start before the end of the year.

Other characters including Irving and Anthony Julius, Professor Lipstadt's solicitor, are yet to be cast.

Weisz's own parents were refugees from Europe who came to the UK shortly before the Second World War.

Rachel voiced the part of the first woman rabbi, Regina Jonas - a victim of Auschwitz - in the film Regina.