Seven films in official selection
by Annika Pham
More exciting news for UK films and talents still celebrating their 15 nominations at the 79th Academy Awards: no less than seven UK films and co-productions will screen in official competition at the 57th Berlinale, with David Mackenzie’s Hallam Foe [+see also:
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Hallam Foe, the fourth film by Scottish filmmaker Mackenzie (Young Adam), will have its world premiere in competition in Berlin. The bittersweet coming-of-age story focuses on a 17 year-old misfit (Jamie Bell in his first major role since Billy Elliot) who likes to watch the world from a tree house on the grounds of his father's house in the Scottish Borders.
Based on a novel by Peter Jinks, the £3.1m film was produced by Gillian Berrie – Mackenzie’s partner in Glasgow-based Sigma Films – and executive produced by Matthew Justice (Lunar Films). The co-financiers are Film Four, Scottish Screen, the Glasgow Film Fund and Ingenious Film Partners. Independent Film Sales are handling world sales (excluding the UK, Greece, Scandinavia and Switzerland) and Buena Vista will release it in the UK next August.
Notes on a Scandal screening out of competition, reunites Eyre and Dame Judi Dench five years after Iris. The psycho-thriller, written by Patrick Marber (Closer), is based on Zoe Heller’s novel What Was She Thinking. Dench plays a lonely and bitter London schoolteacher who develops an obsession for the school’s new art teacher (Cate Blanchett). But their ambiguous friendship soon turns sour.
The film, a four-time Oscar nominee, was produced in the US by Scott Rubin and Robert Fox with DNA Films in the UK for 20th Century Fox, with co-financing from the UK Film Council and BBC Films. The UK release is set for February 2.
The five other films co-produced by the UK are La vie en rose [+see also:
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interview: Sam Garbarski
interview: Sébastien Delloye
film profile] by Sam Garbarski and Angel [+see also:
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