18/07/2008

The UK Film Council (UKFC) has announced its latest tranche of development funding under the aegis of its Development Fund programme for established filmmakers.

Screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh, (BAFTA winner for Control), gets £35,500 to work on Nowhere Boy, about 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.

Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae will produce for Ecosse Films (Brideshead Revisited [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).

John Maybury (The Edge of Love [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) receives £116,500 to write The Lives of Lee Miller, about the iconic model, photographer and muse. Norma Heyman (Dangerous Liaisons) will produce for Heyman-Hoskins.

Acclaimed filmmaker Michael Winterbottom (A Mighty Heart [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) gets £25,000 to develop Promised Land, set in Palestine at the end of WW2. Andrew Eaton, through Revolution Films, will produce the film.

Director Roger Michell (Venus [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and producer Kevin Loader through their company Free Range Films have joined with David Aukin and his producer partner Hal Vogel at Daybreak Pictures. They get £47,540 to develop Hyde Park on Hudson, about King George VI and Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Franklyn D Roosevelt’s mansion in 1939.

The Fund is also partnering with BBC Films in funding two literary adaptations. Dramatist/director/actor Moira Buffini receives £48,375 to adapt Posy Simmond’s acclaimed graphic novel Tamara Drewe and playwright/novelist Biyi Bandele gets £39,375 to adapt Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2007 Orange Prize-winning novel, Half of a Yellow Sun.

Sophie Fiennes teams again with Slavoj Zizek (The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema) and receives £10,000 to develop the documentary The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology.

Naman Ramachandran