London: The UK Film Council's Development Fund has announced Lottery funding for several new films being in partnership with BBC Films.
Jenny Borgars, Head of the UK Film Council's Development Fund says, "These projects represent a fantastic array of talent developing films that reflect and draw on our cultural heritage and which have the potential to impact at international level. We are really pleased to be continuing our work with the BBC and in doing so consolidating a partnership that helps to create sustainability within the UK film industry."
Coram Boy is an adaptation of the epic best-selling children's novel by Jamila Gavin with Alison Owen (Sylvia, Proof, Shaun of the Dead) and Scott Rudin (Closer, Venus, The Queen) producing. Coram Boy was successfully bought to the stage last year by director Melly Still, with a sell-out run at the National Theatre. Set in 18th century Britain, this gothic tale follows the lives of two orphaned boys - Aaron, unknowingly the son of a wealthy composer, and Toby, the son of an African slave, who grow up together at the Coram Hospital for children. When Aaron is awarded an apprenticeship with a young composer, his passion for music and his beautiful voice prompt those around him to ask questions about his mysterious origins. Toby, however, is offered a place in the household of a vile and dangerous nobleman, who suspects might be involved in child slavery...Could these two seemingly unconnected households, harbour a very dark secret? And is it possible that fate has brought Aaron to the very house of his father, who having fled his estate and young lover many years ago, has no idea his son even exists...?
Writer Stuart Beattie (Collateral, Pirates of the Caribbean) adapts Len Deighton's acclaimed novel Bomber about 24 hours of the Allied bombing campaign against Germany for producers Roger Randall-Cutler and Rob Cheek of The First Film Company (Dance with a Stranger, The Commitments). Uniquely even-handed in telling the story of both the Allies and the Germans, this is both an edge of the seat action thriller and a profoundly moving examination of how good men survive the essential immorality of war. Pete Travis (Vantage Point, Omagh) will direct.
My Week with Marilyn takes its inspiration from the memoirs of Colin Clark and tells of the week long friendship he had with screen legend Marilyn Monroe. Film and television writer Adrian Hodges (Rome, The Ruby in the Smoke, Metroland, Tom and Viv) is writing the script with Simon Curtis (Five Days, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, David Copperfield) to direct. David Parfitt of Trademark Films (Shakespeare in Love, The Madness of King George) is producing.
Colin Clark met Marilyn Monroe while working as a young assistant on on Laurence Olivier's The Prince and the Showgirl. When Marilyn experienced emotional difficulties during shooting, the 23-year-old third assistant director came to her aid and romance developed. But one week of honesty and fun was not enough to save the doomed star from self destruction.
Brideshead Revisited, supported by the Development Fund, is now being co-funded by the UK Film Council's Premiere Fund. Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots, Becoming Jane) will direct, with Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae (Becoming Jane, The Waterhorse) producing for Ecosse Films. An adaptation of the classic novel by Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead was previously adapted into an award-winning television series directed by Charles Sturridge and Michael Lindsay-Hogg. For the feature film, leading film and television writer Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones, TV's Pride and Prejudice ) will work with writer Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland).
Brideshead Revisited is the much-loved tale of a young artist who becomes obsessed with a family of dysfunctional aristocratic Catholics and their beautiful stately home, and longs to belong to their apparently idyllic world. But this impression turns out to be an illusion and in the end it is this very longing that destroys his love firstly for the son and then his sister, ensuring that he remains an outsider forever.
The new slate of projects follow a successful chain of Development Fund-BBC partnered films including Andrea Arnold's Cannes Jury prize winner Red Road; Justin Chadwick's forthcoming feature The Other Boleyn Girl written by BAFTA and Golden Globe award-winning British screenwriter Peter Morgan; The Boleyn Inheritance, the sequel to The Other Boleyn Girl; and Peter Pan in Scarlet, the film version of the official sequel to JM Barrie's classic Peter Pan.
Bomber £75,475
Coram Boy £69,291
My Week with Marilyn £45,750
Brideshead Revisited £37,000 (Development fund)
£1,200,000 (Premiere Fund)
For press enquiries please contact
Chloe Lola Riess / Tina McFarling
UK Film Council press office:
T: +44 (0)20 7861 7900/7901
E: chloe.riess@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk / tina.mcfarling@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk
Film awards
Information on all awards made is available on the UK Film Council's website: www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/information/awards.
Notes to editors:
The UK Film Council is the lead agency for film in the UK ensuring that the economic, cultural and educational aspects of film are effectively represented at home and abroad. We invest Government grant-in-aid and Lottery money in film development and production; training; international development and export promotion; distribution and exhibition; and education. Our aim is 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 film-makers 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 UK Film Council's Development Fund aims to broaden the quality, range and ambition of UK film projects and talent being developed, bringing together screenwriters, script editors, directors, producers and a mixture of other creative talents to increase the number of quality scripts moving to production. With £12 million to invest over three years the fund is building creatively focused relationships with a breadth of talent from 'first-timers' to experienced practitioners and is enabling British film companies to grow their businesses.
Projects supported by the fund include The Other Boleyn Girl (dir. Justin Chadwick, wr. Peter Morgan), And When Did You Last See Your Father? (dir Anand Tucker, wr David Nicholls), Becoming Jane (dir Julian Jarrold, wrs Kevin Hood & Sarah Williams), Red Road (dir. Andrea Arnold, wrs Andrea Arnold & Anders Thomas Jensen), The Proposition (dir. John Hillcoat, wr. Nick Cave); Kidulthood (dir. Menhaj Huda, wr. Noel Clarke); Anita & Me (dir. Metin Hüseyin, wr. Meera Syal); The Magdalene Sisters (wr/dir. Peter Mullan); Severance (dir. Christopher Smith, wr. James Moran & Christopher Smith); A Woman in Winter (wr/dir. Richard Jobson); The Dark (dir. John Fawcett, wr. Simon Maginn and Stephen Massicotte); Straightheads (wr. & dir. Dan Reed); Life & Lyrics (dir. Richard Laxton, wr. Ken Williams), and Sparkle (wr/dir. Tom Hunsinger and Neil Hunter).
Loading...
