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Studio Soho Distribution has announced the UK and Irish release date of the 19th of July for the British movie ‘Chuck Chuck Baby’ alongside its new poster.

Set in present-day industrial North Wales, Helen spends her nights packing chickens and her days caring for a dying mother-figure Gwen. Helen’s world takes an unexpected turn with the return of Joanne. Twenty years ago, they were the objects of the other’s unspoken teenage passions. One night, Helen encourages Joanne to start a playful wooing game that re-awakens their youthful feelings.

As they fall in love and lust, Helen’s zest for life returns but Joanne feels the walls closing in as she faces something much darker from her past. Helen’s world is shattered when Gwen dies and Joanne’s painful memories cause her to flee. Separated and alone, will both women reflect on their unfulfilled chance to break their...

The Yellow Affair has sold Janis Pugh’s debut Chuck Chuck Baby to a slew of territories, including Dark Star Pictures in North America and Studio Soho for UK-Ireland.

The Edinburgh premiere, which also played at Toronto, has also sold to Scandinavia and Baltics (NonStop), Germany and Austria (Salzgeber), Spain (Yoda Films) and for airlines (Aardwolf).

LA-based Dark Star Pictures has a theatrical release planned for this summer.

Anne Beresford, Adam Partridge, Andrew Gillman and Peggy Cafferty produced the UK feature. The cast includes Louise Brealey, Annabel Scholey, Sorcha Cusack, Celyn Jones and Emily Fairn.

Chuck Chuck Baby takes place in the present day,...

A total of £208,217 was awarded to 10 projects through the international distribution strand.

Hoard, The Radleys and How To Have Sex are among the 10 titles to receive funding from the latest round of UK Global Screen Fund (Ukgsf) awards, totalling £208,217 through the international distribution strand, administered by the British Film Institute (BFI).

To-date, this strand has made 57 awards totalling nearly £2m, financed through the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms).

Financial support for international distribution provides sales agents and producers with funding via three tracks – film sales, prints & advertising (P&a) and festival launch.

Venice Critics’ Week award winner Hoard,...

The BFI and Film4 have selected what has been described as nine “high-budget” short film projects that will receive cash funding in the first round of awards from their Future Takes short film fund.

Each selected filmmaking team is set to be awarded between £55,000-£90,000 to create their projects. The nine greenlit projects will shoot between September 2023 and spring 2024. In addition to production funding, BFI and Film4 creative and production executives will support each film through its entire lifecycle. Once completed, the films will be screened at a showcase at BFI Southbank, after which they will be available on Channel 4 streaming and BFI Player.

Launched with an open call in December 2022, the BFI and Film4 said they received over 400 applications for Future Takes. The two companies said the quality of projects was “incredibly high,” which led them to agree to fund nine projects rather than seven per their initial open call.

Recipients including Screen Star of Tomorrow 2023 Rory Fleck Byrne and ’Chuck Chucky Baby’ producers Anne Beresford and Andrew Gillman.

The British Film Institute (BFI) and Film4 have unveiled the nine short films that will receive funding through their Future Takes programme,.

It will see each filmmaking team receive between £55,000 and £90,000 of National Lottery funding, with recipients including Screen Star of Tomorrow 2023 Rory Fleck Byrne and Chuck Chucky Baby producers Anne Beresford and Andrew Gillman.

Actor-director Fleck Byrne, who stared in BBC drama series This Is Going To Hurt, has been selected for In Heat, produced Radha Bhandari, whose short For...

The importance of laughter during times of loss is often undervalued. With her feature directorial debut, Janis Pugh showcases the significance of friendship and humor when grief strikes. A musical rom-com drama, “Chuck Chuck Baby” underscores the power of female companionship through the ups and downs of life.

Premiering as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival’s LGBTQ Stories section and also headed to Toronto Film Festival, “Chuck Chuck Baby” follows the life of Helen (Louise Brealey), a chicken factory worker in a small industrial town in northern Wales, whose life is mired in quotidian details, packaging chickens and caring for her ailing mother-figure Gwen. Helen’s life is turned upside down, however, with the unexpected arrival of her former high school love Joanne (Annabel Scholey), who inspires a renewed appreciation in Helen of her hometown, her life and herself. Yet, the couple’s reunion is quickly muddled. The...

Sales company also takes on Janis Pugh’s Great 8 selection ‘Chuck Chuck Baby.’

The Yellow Affair has boarded international sales for Mark Leonard Winter’s feature directorial debut The Rooster starring Hugo Weaving (The Lord Of The Rings) and Phoenix Raei (The Night Agent).

When the body of his oldest friend is found buried in a shallow grave, a small-town cop, forms a strange relationship with a volatile hermit who may have been the last person to see his friend alive.

Winter is an acclaimed actor who previously appeared in The Dressmaker, Elvis and Top of the Lake: China Girl.

The buyers’ event is organised by the BFI and British Council.

Janis Pugh’s Chuck Chuck Baby, Amrou Al-Kadhi’s Layla and Daniel Kokotajlo’s sophomore feature, Starve Acre, are among the eight features selected for Great8, the annual Cannes buyers’ showcase of UK films from emerging directors organised by the British Film Institute (BFI) and British Council.

The showcase, now in its sixth year, presents UK feature films from first and second-time filmmakers to international distributors and festival programmers. It is funded and run by the BFI and British Council, in partnership with BBC Film and Film4.

In preparation for the Marché,...

The BFI and British Council have unveiled the eight new British films that will be presented to international distributors and festival programmers at the Cannes film market as part of the annual Great8 showcase.

Unseen footage from the films, from first and second time U.K. filmmakers, will be introduced by their filmmakers and screened on May 11. Now in its sixth year, the initiative is in partnership with BBC Film and Film4. Films previously highlighted by Great8 include Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun,” Rungano Nyoni’s “I Am Not A Witch,” Georgia Oakley’s “Blue Jean” and Rose Glass’ “Saint Maud.”

Agnieszka Moody, BFI head of international and industry policy, said: “The lineup of films and filmmakers featuring in this year’s Great8 continues to shine a light on the exciting diversity of filmmaker voices and stories continuing to come out of the U.K. We are proud alongside our partners at the British Council,...

Here’s our annual rundown of the 10 largest production awards given out by the British Film Institute’s Film Fund in 2022. Backed by National Lottery money, the grants are a key supporter of indie cinema in the UK.

Top of the list is Timestalker, the debut feature film from actor and writer Alice Lowe. Billed as a “reincarnation romcom,” the film follows the tale of one woman’s unrequited love spanning several centuries. Lowe directs from a screenplay she wrote. She also stars in the film alongside Jacob Anderson (Game Of Thrones), Aneurin Barnard (David Copperfield), Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education), and Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz). Vaughan Sivell and Western Edge Pictures are producers. The film is currently eyeing a 2023 release.

Second on the list is Starve Acre, a supernatural horror film from BAFTA-nominated Apostasy creator Daniel Kokotajlo. The Crown star Matt Smith and Saint Maud’s Morfydd Clark lead pic,...

Louise Brealey and Annabel Scholey star.

Filming has started in north Wales on UK writer-director Janis Pugh’s debut feature Chuck Chuck Baby, a musical drama set in a chicken factory in industrial north Wales.

The cast is headed up by Louise Brealey and Annabel Scholey, with Sorcha Cusack, Celyn Jones and Emily Fairn also starring.

Anne Beresford and Andrew Gillman are producing through their label Artemisia Films, alongside Adam Partridge of Delta Pictures and Peggy Cafferty of Play House Studios.

It is funded by the BFI, with Lizzie Francke executive producing, and Ffilm Cymru Wales, both awarding National Lottery funding,...

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of Tim Burton's wonderful big screen adaptation of Batman. At that time, comic book movies were kind of a new thing, audiences weren't used to them, so the studio had to try and find ways to convince them on watching a dark and serious take on the superhero.

One of the things they put together was a 20-minute behind-the-scenes documentary short that takes us through the history of the character, and points out all of the thought and work that went into creating Burton’s movie. That doc has now been released online for all of you to watch!

The doc comes from 1989Batman.com, and they talked to director Andrew Gillman about it, and this is what he had to say:

"Warner Brothers had found themselves in a very difficult situation at the time. The marketing director at Warner told me that Adam West...

As the headline says, Tim Burton's Batman came out 25 years ago today and some might say it was the film that led us to the point we've reached today where we have upwards of 22 new superhero movies already laying claim to release dates over the next four years. That said, the superhero/comic book movies have come a long way as it's just as much a result in an advancement in technology as it is anything else. Well, that and the fact they are natural franchise starters, easy to sequelize, market, turn into lunchboxes, etc. Speaking of marketing, just below is the first teaser trailer for the film and to call it a trailer, especially compared to what we get today, is a bit of a stretch as it's simply a series of clips from the film, one of which features Jack Nicholson as The Joker and it freezes...

In case you hadn't heard from the rest of the internet, today marks the exact 25th anniversary of the theatrical release of Tim Burton's 1989 adaptation of the classic DC Comics superhero Batman. It's tough to remember a time when comic book superheroes weren't guaranteed box office champions, but when Warner Bros. decided to bring Batman to the big screen for the first time in over 20 years, they had some convincing to do. Not only was the mainstream public not all that interested in what was still believed to be a campy superhero, but the film industry itself needed to be sold on The Dark Knight's marketability and appeal to audiences. And that's why the following 20-minute promo for the film was put together. Watch! Here's the 20-minute industry promo for Tim Burton's Batman (via The Playlist): The above video was put together by Andrew Gillman, who...

With 23 superhero movies planned for the next four years or so, it might be hard to understand that in 1989, the prospect of one comic book movie was causing some concern on a big studio lot. Tim Burton's "Batman" hit theaters on June 23, 1989, but even as filming had barely started, Warner Bros. were concerned. The character had a long legacy, one largely associated (at least in the mainstream public's view) with the campy TV show starring Adam West, and they were eager to assuage film distributors that this would be something much different. And so, Andrew Gillman was tasked with cutting together a 20-minute industry promo that would explain the character's history and what this new film version would be all about. "Warner Brothers had found themselves in a very difficult situation at the time. The marketing director at Warner told me that Adam West had been going to various...

As UK film-makers and members of Directors UK, we are greatly saddened to learn of the imprisonment of acclaimed Iranian film-makers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof (Iran jails film-maker who dared to back opposition for six years, 21 December). We strongly condemn the actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in seeking to temper free speech and believe that a greater understanding of the people of Iran at home and abroad can only result from the unhindered expression of creativity in film, media and the arts in all their forms.

We express our sense of solidarity with Jafar and Mohammad and call upon the Iranian government to immediately rescind the sentences and to release them without delay.

Paul Greengrass (President, Directors UK), Udayan Prasad, Nigel Cole, Kevin Macdonald, David Yates, Michael Apted, Julian Jarrold, Iain Softley, Paul Unwin, Andrew Gillman, Tim Sullivan, Piers Haggard, Dan Clifton

IranMiddle East

guardian.co.uk...