26/04/2006

Joy Wong and her sales and marketing team at The Works will be launching a new UK comedy in Cannes: Scenes of a Sexual Nature, the directorial debut of Edward Blum, starring over a dozen top UK actors, including Ewan McGregor, Gina McKee, Sophie Okonedo, Polly Walker and Hugh Bonneville.

Set one summer’s afternoon on Hampstead Heath in London, the film delves into the minutiae of seven couples, giving a comic and erotically charged look at what makes us tick. Blum, who previously directed the BAFTA nominated short film The Last Post in 1996 and several TV projects and documentaries, produced his low budget (under €800,000) debut through his own production outfit, Tin Pan Films, with Vadim Jean, Suran Goonatilake and Amanda Wilkie as executive producers. The film will premiere at the Cannes Market.

Two titles still in post-production by established UK filmmakers Roger Michell (The Mother [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Notting Hill) and Shane Meadows (A Room For Romeo Brass) are also in The Works’ line-up for Cannes. Venus reunites Michell with producer Kevin Loader and scriptwriter Hanif Kureishi, who worked with him on The Mother. Peter O’Toole and Leslie Philipps play two veteran English actors whose comfortable lives are shaken up by the arrival of one man’s grandniece (Jodie Whittaker). The film is produced for Film Four, the UK Film Council and Miramax Films. Buena Vista will release it next autumn in the UK.

Meadows’ fifth feature film, This is England, is set during the summer holidays of 1983 and is a coming of age story about a young boy growing up in the North of England without a father. Produced by Mark Herbert for Warp Films, the film is co-financed by Film Four, the UK FC, EM Media, Screen Yorkshire and Ingenious Media. Optimum Releasing will distribute it in the UK next autumn.

The fourth key title on The Works slate for Cannes is Michael Winterbottom’s Berlin Silver Bear winner, The Road to Guantanamo [+see also:
trailer
film profile].