SHORT TAKES : Producer Sues Garcia Marquez

Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez faces a breach-of-agreement lawsuit filed by a movie producer who contends that the author broke a deal with him to film “Love in the Time of Cholera.”

Richard Roth, producer of the film “Julia,” claims in the suit filed Monday that he had a deal with Garcia Marquez to pay $400,000 for film rights to the Colombian-born author’s latest international bestseller. But the deal went sour when Garcia Marquez allegedly demanded Roth hire a Latin American director to produce the film set in South America, said Roth’s attorney, Max Blecher. Roth’s financing arrangements fell through after Garcia Marquez imposed the condition, Blecher said.