24/02/2003

Film Four’s former finance director Kim Ballard has been appointed as director of production finance for UK based financing and production company Random Harvest (RH). Ballard, who was Financial Director for British Screen Finance for seven years also worked on films like East is East and Sexy Beast at Film Four.
By offering private equity funding under the UK’s Section 48 and EIS tax mechanism, RH produces mainstream films like the forthcoming £21m (Euros12m) psychological thriller, Schneider’s Second Stage, starring Kenneth Branagh - the feature-length version of Phil Stoole’s short film - which is currently in development.
Through its horror label Four Horsemen Films, launched in February 2002, RH also develops between two and three films a year that are distributed in Europe by Buena Vista International and sold in the remaining territories by US agent, Overseas Film Group. In 2002, two Four Horsemen Films were made: Octane with Madeleine Stowe and LD50 with Katharine Towne (Mulholland Drive).