Backed by Creative England, BFI Film Fund, BBC Films and Creative Skillset, the 18 feature-length projects were selected from more than 400 submissions.
By next March (2015), 3 of the 18 films will be greenlit by iFeatures, each with budgets of £350,000 (or about $565,000).
Of note, with respect to this blog’s interests, the list of 18 comprises of projects from writers/producers/directors who have previously gotten some ink on this blog, including: writer Rachel De-lahay; writer Abby Ajayi; producer Yaw Basoah; and director Shola Amoo. There might be 1 or 2 others to note here, but none I could recognize, nor my research confirm.
Each project will undergo creative and commercial development, with support from the inititiative partners and other industry professionals.
Christopher Granier-Deferre, iFeatures executive producer, said: “We were blown away by the level of applicants this year and were particularly pleased to see some great television and theatre talent applying for the initiative.”
Christopher Moll, head of film at Creative England and the architect of iFeatures said: “We’ve worked closely with organisations such as Women in Film & TV and the Black Filmmakers Network, amongst others, to increase diversity this year and I’m delighted to see that our overall cohort is now evenly split between men and women. The higher numbers of outstanding female, BAME and LGBT talent coming through is reflected in the much greater diversity of stories that we’ve read. That can only be a good thing for industry and audiences alike.”
The selection panel included director Clio Barnard and ex-Focus Films executive Teresa Moneo.
The full list of 18 projects selected follows below:
| TITLE | GENRE |
LOGLINE |
SETTING | TEAM |
| Mud | Drama | Holly is an obsessive 14 year old who finds a substitute for her dysfunctional family in a faded seaside town but what is concealed behind the jolly façade of ice cream, sand castles and penny arcades? | Somerset coast | Director: Jim Morgan Writer: Scout Stuart
Producer: Loran Dunn |
| Fen Tigers | Drama | A solitary young man leaves the safety of his home for the fenland wilderness to protect the traveller girl he has fallen in love with. | East Anglian Fenlands | Writer/Director: Rupert Raby
Producers: Andrew Start and Yaw Basoah |
| White Collars | Comedy | White Collars is the story of two used-car salesman who bet their entire future on the outcome of an amateur boxing tournament involving an old schoolyard rival. | Derby | Directors: Joe and Adam Horton
Writer: Simon Hewitt Producer: Andrew Ryder |
| Apostasy | Drama | Two sisters have been bought up in The Truth. One tries to break free, but when Armageddon is predicted, she must choose who to save. | Oldham, North West | Director: Dan Kokotajlo Writer: Charlotte Wise
Producers: Marcie MacLellan and Mike Elliot |
| The Last Tree | Road movie | African spirituality imbues the English landscape when a 28-year old man embarks on a transformative quest to find his birth mother. | Birmingham, Lincolnshire, Manchester, Cumbria | Writer/Director: Shola Amoo
Producer: Lee Thomas |
| Keeper | Horror | When two old friends reconnect their renewed friendship is still fragile and is tested to the limit when they become embroiled in a battle to survive what appears to be a deadly virus outbreak in the North Yorkshire Dales. | North Yorkshire Dales | Writer/Director: Dan Gitsham
Producer: Sophie Mair |
| Gone From Here | Drama | The relationship between two brothers is pushed to its limit when a young boy from their neighbourhood mysteriously disappears. | Manchester | Writer/Director: Lewis Metcalfe
Producer: Lauren Pouchly |
| The Westbridge | Drama | Anything can happen in 24 hours. And for the residents of inner-city Birmingham one hot summer, everything did… | Birmingham | Writer/Director: Rachel Delahay
Producer: Jaimie D’Cruz |
| Lady Macbeth | Period Drama | The thrilling and unsettling tragedy of a woman’s struggle for happiness and control in the midst of a watchful and constraining society. | Northumberland | Writer/Director: William Oldroyd Writer: Alice Birch
Producer: Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly |
| God’s Own Country | Drama | This year’s lambing season will forever change the lives of dutiful Yorkshire farmer Johnny and migrant worker Gheorghe. | The Pennines | Writer/Director: Francis Lee Producers: Manon Ardisson and Jack Tarling |
| Moon Tan | Drama | Two teenage misfits are determined to escape their small town lives and journey to the northern most tip of Britain to bask in the pure moonlight and get a mythical ‘Moon Tan’. | Essex to Scotland (road movie) | Writer/Director: Karan Kandhari
Producers: Anna Griffin and Alastair Clark |
| The Levelling | Drama | The Catto farm in Somerset has miraculously escaped the flooding but is still enveloped in isolation and fear and when 21-year old Charlie Catto kills himself his family starts sinking. | Somerset | Writer/Director: Hope Dickson Leach
Producer: Rachel Robey |
| Conception | Drama | Dave and Joe grapple with the reality versus the fairy tale of adoption as they embark on the life-changing process. | Scarborough | Director: Lynsey Miller
Writer: Evan Placey Producer: Cecilia Frugiuele |
| Societypath | Thriller | When a distressed housewife loses her husband to suicide it seems his troubled psychotherapist could be the perfect person to blame. | East Sussex | Writer/Director: Camille Griffin Producer: Sarah Brocklehurst |
| The Ugly List | Thriller | Six teenage girls trapped in detention get more than they bargained for when one of their peers reveals a shocking agenda. | Brighton | Director: Alex Kalymnios
Writer: Abby Ajayi Producer: Jessica Levick |
| Protect Me From What I Want | Romance | When two lads from different sides of the tracks embark on a dangerous and taboo relationship, their initial sexual desire melts into deep emotional intimacy in this coming of age love story. | Bradford | Writer/Director: Dominic Leclerc Writer: Jonathan Hall
Producer: Rebecca Mark-Lawson |
| Izzy and June | Comedy | The brand new “womance” proves that blood is thicker than water as a dysfunctional roadmap to healing half-sisterhood takes a route through blackly comic territory. | The Jurassic Coast | Director: Dan Castella Writers: Montserrat Lombard and Olivia Poulet
Producer: Charlotte Walls |
| Nord Ost Kino | Drama | An estranged couple discover an old film machine that can miraculously project memories. | Newcastle | Writer/Director: Zam Salim
Producer: Maeve McMahon |
