12/02/2003

Oscar-nominated film director, Stephen Daldry for The Hours is to take on a more active role in UK production company, F&ME, headed by Mike Downey and Sam Taylor.
Currently on the company’s advisory board, Daldry will act as executive producer on the company’s ambitious 2003/2004 production slate worth $40m (Euros40m circa), that includes 7 European co-productions, 3 US and Canadian co-productions and 3 UK productions.
The European projects include three co-productions with Iceland: Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s Niceland, co-produced with Zik Zak Filmworks (Noi albinoi) and Denmark’s Nimbus Film, and two films co-produced with Fridriksson’s production outfit, Icelandic Film Corporation: Every Colour Of The Sea is Cold and The Silent Magician.
Other European projects include Nazareth, co-produced with Spain’s Boca Boca and Germany’s Daniel Zuta; Divine Machine co-produced with Allegro Film (Austria) and Peter Rommel Produktion (Germany); My Brother Is a Dog, co-produced with Germany’s Tradewind Pictures and Love In Limbo, co-produced with Ireland’s Grand Pictures and Spain’s 42nd Street.
F&ME has around $250,000 in seed money for feature film development coming from the MEDIA Plus Programme, the British Film Council and its own funds. According to Daldry, since F&ME was restructured a couple of months ago following a successful management buy-out from its previous German owners FAME AG F&ME, the UK company has become “much stronger and more creative… I am delighted to be so closely involved with a company which is proving itself capable of operating at all levels in the international film production arena”.