23/01/2007

London-based sales company The Works has just acquired international sales and UK distribution rights to Andrew Piddington’s The Killing of John Lennon, which will have its official premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival at the end of the month.

The Killing of John Lennonis a chilling insight into the mind of Mark David Chapman, the 25 year-old narcissist who gunned down John Lennon outside the Dakota apartment building in New York in 1980. Meticulously researched and filmed on actual locations in Hawaii, Georgia and New York, the film is a gritty and imagistic examination of a celebrity stalker's mind leading up to the kill.

Piddington’s third feature film was produced by Rakha Singh for Picture Players, the production company Piddington set up in 1992. The Works will premiere the film at the European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin.

The sales team of The Works headed, by Joy Wong, will also have a market premiere in Berlin of Oliver Parker’s I Really Love My Job. Neve Campbell, Shirley Henderson, Alexandra Maria Lara, Anna Maxwell Martin and Oana Pellea play five women who work together in a busy Soho restaurant. During the course of an evening, they discuss details of their lives, from fear of getting old to dreaming of working anywhere but there.

Three other films will screen at the EFM: Shane Meadows’ acclaimed This is England [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Roger Michell’s Venus [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Children [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Icelandic filmmaker Ragnar Bragason.

The Works will also start negotiations on two films in post-production: John Pilger and Chris Martin’s documentary The War on Democracy and Sarah Gavron’s new film Brick Lane.