Early filming on the adaptation of Raimond Gaita's novel Romulus, My Father, began this week.

The film tells the story of Romulus Gaita, a migrant who moved to Baringhup with his family in the 1950s.

Bana, the star of Troy and Chopper, will play Romulus, while Run Lola Run star Franka Potente will play his wife Christine.

This week's filming focused on capturing the central Victorian landscape before the wheat harvest takes place.

The major part of the filming will start in April.

Bana was not involved in this week's filming, with a double standing in for him.

In coming months, Bana will be busy promoting his latest film, Munich. Bana is the early favourite to win an Oscar for the film, which was directed by Steven Spielberg.

Gaita is confident Potente, who has also appeared in The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Identity, will bring with her the passion and vulnerability needed for the role of Christine.

"She has real intensity in her eyes, and that's what is needed for someone like my mother," he said.

"Not a classical beauty, but in the way Cate Blanchett can look really beautiful sometimes, and sometimes not at all, she also has that marvellous intensity in her eyes."

Maldon will feature prominently in the film, and Castlemaine or Maryborough will also be featured.

Poet and playwright Nick Drake has adapted the story for the screen.

"When I talked to the screenwriter, I said the big thing is that this has to happen under a big, big sky in a way the Greek tragedies happen under a big Greek sky," Gaita said.

"It's the same sort of colour."