Award-winning British filmmakers developing new films backed by the UK Film Council's Development Fund
Beatles legend Lennon, a graphic heroine, and stories about love and politics set for new films backed by the Lottery
LONDON – 18 July 2008. New films being developed by award-winning British writers and directors are being backed by the Lottery through the UK Film Council Development Fund programme for established filmmakers.
Screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh, a BAFTA winner for Control, is working on Nowhere Boy, the story of John Lennon's relationship with his mother and aunt. Based on the book by Julia Baird, John's sister, Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon, it sheds new light onto his early years. Raised by his aunt, John grows up unaware that his real mother lives just round the corner. They are re-united and she introduces him to the world of rock 'n' roll. A painful struggle erupts between the two women, and tragedy strikes, propelling John into The Beatles, full of love, longing and pain. Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae will produce for Ecosse Films (Brideshead Revisited, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep). The script has been co-developed with UK distributor 2 Entertain.
Signature filmmaker John Maybury (The Edge of Love, Love is the Devil) continues his anti-biopic approach to real life subjects and will write The Lives of Lee Miller, about the iconic model, photographer and muse whose life story reflects the liberated spirit of the 20th century woman. Norma Heyman (Dangerous Liaisons, Gangster No.1) will produce for Heyman-Hoskins.
Multiple award-winning filmmaker Michael Winterbottom (A Mighty Heart, The Road to Guantanamo) is working on a new project, Promised Land, a Graham Greene-esque story which takes place in Palestine at the end of the Second World War. The film will be produced by Winterbottom collaborator Andrew Eaton through Revolution Films.
Director Roger Michell (Venus, Enduring Love) and producer Kevin Loader (through their company Free Range Films) have teamed up with David Aukin and his producer partner Hal Vogel at Daybreak Pictures to make Hyde Park on Hudson, an account of the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Franklyn D Roosevelt's upstate house in the summer of 1939.
The Development Fund is also working in partnership with BBC Films in funding two literary adaptations. Dramatist/director/actor Moira Buffini will adapt Posy Simmond's acclaimed graphic novel Tamara Drewe and playwright/novelist Biyi Bandele will adapt Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2007 Orange Prize-winning novel, Half of a Yellow Sun.
Tamara Drewe is a razor-sharp satire about a writer's retreat interrupted by the beautiful eponymous heroine, who unwittingly wreaks havoc in the pleasant English countryside. The film is being produced by Alison Owen at Ruby Films, the company behind Brick Lane and Elizabeth.
Half of a Yellow Sun is set during Biafra's struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria, and is a story about moral responsibility, the end of colonialism, ethnic allegiances, class and race and the ways that love can complicate them all. Andrea Calderwood, producer of the award-winning The Last King of Scotland is behind the project.
Sophie Fiennes is re-teaming with Slavoj Zizek (The Pervert's Guide to Cinema) to make The Pervert's Guide to Ideology. The documentary will use cinema to argue that contemporary culture has a hidden subservience to ideology. Slavoj will guide us through film clips, sets and locations using a myriad of cinematic techniques and styles to make his case.
Other new films in the pipeline backed by the UK Film Council's Development Fund include the second feature from the Cannes Jury Prize winning Andrea Arnold, Fish Tank which is also being funded by the Council's New Cinema Fund and currently in pre-production; Armando Ianucci's In the Loop which is currently in production; and Jane Campion's Bright Star, currently in post-production. Awards to new projects by first-time filmmakers were announced in April.
The Pervert's Guide to Ideology £10,000
Half of a Yellow Sun £39,375
Hyde Park on Hudson £47,540
Promised Land £25,000
The Lives of Lee Miller £116,500
Nowhere Boy £35,500
Tamara Drewe £48,375
For further information:
Tara Milne / Caroline Nagle / Tina McFarling
UK Film Council press office: T: +44 (0)20 7861 7901/ 7900/ 7508
E: tina.mcfarling@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk
Notes to Editors
The UK Film Council is the Government backed lead agency for film in the UK Council. We aim tomake sure that the UK has a dynamic film industry fit for the digital age and to help UK audiences enjoy the best of British and world cinema.
We invest Government grant-in-aid and Lottery money in developing new filmmakers, in funding exciting new British films and in getting a wider choice of films to audiences throughout the UK. We also invest in training, promoting Britain as an international filmmaking location and in raising the profile of British films abroad. We aim to deliver lasting benefits to the industry and the public through:
· creativity - encouraging the development of new talent, skills, and creative and technological innovation in UK film and assisting new and established filmmakers to produce successful and distinctive British films;
· enterprise – supporting the creation and growth of sustainable businesses in the film sector, providing access to finance and helping the UK film industry compete successfully in the domestic and global marketplace;
· imagination - promoting education and an appreciation and enjoyment of cinema by giving UK audiences access to the widest range of UK and international cinema, and by supporting film culture and heritage.
The Development Fund aims to broaden the quality, range and ambition of film projects being developed in the UK and build a talent-driven home for writers, directors and producers. It helps filmmakers of all experience levels develop their ideas and screenplays into viable feature films, be they fiction, documentary or animation, up until the moment they are ready to get production finance. The fund has £12 million to invest over three years. There are two funding programmes, one for first-time feature filmmakers and one for established filmmakers:
· The First Feature Film Development Programme aims to identify and support emerging filmmakers: screenwriters, writer/directors and writer, director, producer teams who have not made a feature film or who have not yet had a feature film released theatrically or broadcast on UK television. Awards are made up to £25,000.
· The Feature Film Development Programme is a dedicated industry funding programme for producers, production companies and filmmakers, with a demonstrable track record of success in feature filmmaking or in production in the audio-visual arena, looking for funding and financing partnerships.
Funded films include How to Lose Friends and Alienate People starring Simon Pegg; Fish Tank, Oscar®-winning film-maker Andrea Arnold's second feature; In The Loop, an adaptation of Armando Ianucci's critically acclaimed television comedy The Thick of It; and West is West, the sequel to East is East.
