LONDON – Friday 4 December 2009
Two films backed with Lottery funding through the UK Film Council will screen at the Sundance Film Festival (21-31 January 2010), the leading showcase in the US for independent films.
Mohamed Al Daradji's Son of Babylon and Sam Taylor Wood's Nowhere Boy have been selected by Sundance from a record number of films submitted from around the world. Both films have been supported with development and production funding by the UK Film Council.
Son of Babylon is a UK/Iraqi film directed and written by Mohamed Al Daradji (Ahlaam), which tells the tale of a young Kurdish boy and his grandmother as they travel through Iraq searching for their father/son in the wake of Saddam Hussein's fall from power. Starring Yasser Talib, Shazda Hussein, Bashir Al-Majid, Son of Babylon will have its international premiere at Sundance and will compete in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition.
Son of Babylon is a multi-national collaboration between the Sundance Institute (US), the UK Film Council (UK), Screen Yorkshire (UK), CNC (France), Hivos, Doen, Nederland Fond and Rotterdam Media Fonds (Netherlands), Pyramedia and ADACH (UAE).
Nowhere Boy isthe debut feature from renowned British artist/director Sam Taylor Wood, written by BAFTA-winner Matthew Greenhalgh (Control). Set in Liverpool in 1955, the film sheds light on the early years of Lennon (Aaron Johnson), who since the age of five has been raised by his controlling Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas). When he learns that his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff) lives only a mile away, he meets her and is instantly bewitched by her vitality and love of rock'n'roll. Nowhere Boy will receive its US premiere at Sundance Film Festival.
Nowhere Boy is an Ecosse Films production in association with Film4, the UK Film Council, NorthWest Vision and Media, Lip Sync Productions and Aver Media. Icon Film Distribution will release the film in the UK on 26 December 2009. HanWay Films is selling international rights and The Weinstein Company has US rights.
Other UK films selected for Sundance this year and having their world premieres are: Chris Morris's Four Lions and Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath's Cambodia/UK production Enemies of the People, both competing in the World Dramatic Cinema Competition; and Lucy Walker's Waste Land, which will compete in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. Two new films from British director Michael Winterbottom will also have their world premieres – The Killer Inside Me and Shock Doctrine (co-directed with Mat Whitecross).
John Woodward, the UK Film Council's Chief Executive Officer said; "It's great to see that for the third year running, UK Film Council backed films have been selected for such a key festival for independent film in the US. Son of Babylon and Nowhere Boy are two very different films which the UK Film Council is proud to have backed from development through to production and are really representative of the exciting range of independent filmmaking in the UK. Selection for Sundance can launch new film talent, really boost international sales potential, seriously enhance a film's profile, as we saw last year with the Lottery-funded Man on Wire for example, which went on to achieve Oscar® success."
Information on all awards made is available on the UK Film Council's website, www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/information/awards.
For press enquiries please contact
Tara Milne / Oliver Foster
UK Film Council press office:
T: +44 (0)20 7861 7901/7508
E: tara.milne@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk / oliver.foster@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk
Notes to Editors:
UK FILM COUNCIL (www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk)
- The UK Film Council is the Government-backed lead agency for film in the UK, supporting the UK film industry, celebrating UK film culture and nurturing UK film talent at home and abroad.
- Since its creation in 2000 the UK Film Council has backed more than 900 films, shorts and features, which have won over 300 awards and entertained more than 200 million people around the world.
- Its support develops new filmmakers, funds exciting new British films and gets a wider choice of films to audiences throughout the UK. It also invests in training British talent, promoting Britain as an international filmmaking location and raising the profile of British films abroad. In addition, it funds the British Film Institute.
- Films backed by the UK Film Council include Man on Wire, Nowhere Boy, Fish Tank, In the Loop, Happy-Go-Lucky, Adulthood, Bend it like Beckham, The Constant Gardener, Gosford Park, Red Road, St Trinian's, This is England, Touching the Void, Vera Drake and The Wind that Shakes the Barley.
- Current UK Film Council funding initiatives include:
- the world's first Digital Screen Network, which has invested in 240 digital screens in cinemas across the country, increasing film choice, bringing the 3D experience to a wider audience, and ensuring the UK has more digital screens than any other European country;
- over 200 film societies and independent regional film venues;
- UK film festivals, including the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival and the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival;
- Skillset, the UK skills and training industry body for the creative industries;
- First Light Movies, which has given 12,000 children and young people the chance to get involved in filmmaking; and
- FILMCLUB, an after school club which gives children in 7,000 schools free weekly access to classic and popular films.
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is the premier showcase for U.S. and international independent film, held each January in and around Park City, Utah. Presenting approximately 120 dramatic and documentary feature-length films in seven distinct categories and between 60 and 80 short films each year, the Sundance Film Festival has introduced American audiences to some of the most ground-breaking films of the past two decades, including sex lies and videotape, Maria Full of Grace, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Trouble the Water and Central Station. www.sundance.org/festival
About Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a not-for-profit organization that fosters the development of original storytelling in film and theatre. Internationally recognized for its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Angels in America, Spring Awakening, Boys Don't Cry and Born into Brothels.
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