20/05/2006

The film arm of UK broadcaster Channel 4 announced in Cannes they will continue their long term relationship with top UK filmmakers Ken Loach and Michael Winterbottom, with the backing of their future projects, respectively titled These Times and Genova.

Loach will team up again with Paul Laverty, scriptwriter of The Wind That Shakes the Barley [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ken Loach
interview: Rebecca O’Brien
film profile], which screened last Thursday in competition at Cannes. The new film – to be produced once again by Loach’s partner at Sixteen Films, Rebecca O’Brien, with French distributor Diaphana also onboard – will start shooting next autumn in London and Scotland.

Film Four who financed Winterbottom’s 2006 Silver Bear winner, The Road To Guantanamo [+see also:
trailer
film profile], will also back the director’s next project produced by his production company, Revolution Films. Scripted by Laurence Coriat (Wonderland), Genova will tell the story of a father and two daughters who move to Genoa, Italy in the wake of their mother’s untimely death to start a new life.

Tessa Ross, head of Film Four, said that her company’s backing of Genova is “a testament to the enormous scope of Michael and the team at Revolution Films’ talent that every story they tell is always unexpected, adventurous and passionate, exactly the vision we aspire to at Film Four.” Channel 4 recently signed a first-look deal with Revolution Films’ new TV arm headed by Kate Ogborn.