Stills of Gozo-filmed Brangelina drama emerge online

We knew that the in-production By the Sea, starring and directed by Angelina Jolie and co-starring her husband Brad Pitt, would be a low-key romantic drama of the kind the duo don't usually get to appear in while operating under the Hollywood machine. 

But we didn't know anything else about the Gozo-filmed movie up until now. 

Along with some official stills, Entertainment Weekly has released the film's official synopsis, which reveals the film to be a languid and potentially melancholy fare. 

"Set in France during the mid-1970s, Jolie plays Vanessa, a former dancer, and Pitt is her husband Roland, an American writer. As they travel the country together, they seem to be growing apart, but when they linger in one quiet, seaside town they begin to draw close to some of its more vibrant inhabitants, such as a local bar/café-keeper (War Horseand A Prophet‘s Niels Arestrup) and hotel owner (Richard Bohringer,The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover.)"

Shooting in Gozo at Mgarr ix-Xini from 8 September, By the Sea will wrap production in November. 

In her capacity as Special Envoy to the UN High Commission, Jolie took time off the shoot last Sunday to visit the naval rescue headquarters in Malta on a weekend in which new boat sinkings were being reported off Egypt and Libya claiming more innocent lives. 

Jolie and UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres met three survivors of one of the tragedies, who had been rescued by a commercial vessel and brought to Malta by the Maltese authorities. 

In Valletta, Jolie also visited Syrian refugee families who survived a similar devastating boat tragedy last October.

On a lighter note, Jolie and Pitt's cinematic soujourn in Gozo has also inspired some creative, humorous online exploits, as the Facebook page Brangelina in Gozo – featuring photoshopped images of the celebrity couple onto Maltese and Gozitan landmarks – garnered over 2,000 Likes in the past week.