Actress Samantha Morton is to make her directorial debut next year with a drama for Channel 4 about a young girl growing up in a children’s home.
Morton’s film, called The Unloved, forms part of a line-up of three major new projects unveiled by the broadcaster, including a new two-part series called Palestine from Britz writer and director Peter Kosminsky.
Morton, who has appeared in TV shows such as Longford for Channel 4 and has made a name for herself in films including Minority Report and Enduring Love, is joining forces with production company Revolution Films on The Unloved, which will begin filming later this year.
She has been working alongside writer Tony Grisoni, who penned the screenplay for the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, to create a fictional script that provides a child’s view of the UK’s care system.
In 2006 Morton, who was herself in care until the age of 16, criticised the state of children’s homes in the UK, claiming paedophiles in prison were treated better.
Speaking about her new project, Morton said: “I am thrilled to be making my first film with Channel 4, who have constantly pushed boundaries, and enabled people like myself to have a voice. I hope this film can help make a difference to the young people that see it.”
Casting is ongoing and the drama will be transmitted in 2009.
Meanwhile, Grisoni is also working on a new drama trilogy for Channel 4 based on three of the books in David Peace’s series of novels called the Red Riding Quartet, which are set in Yorkshire in the seventies and early eighties at the time of the Ripper murders.
White Teeth director Julian Jarrold will direct 1974, James Marsh will direct 1980 and Anand Tucker, who directed Hillary and Jackie, will take the helm of 1983.
The ensemble cast will include Andrew Garfield, last seen in Channel 4’s Boy A, who will play local crime reporter Eddie Dunford, and Sean Bean, who will take the role of local property magnate John Dawson.
David Morrissey will play Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson and Mark Addy will also feature in the production.
It will film in Yorkshire this autumn for broadcast in 2009.
Finally, Kosminsky’s Palestine has been described as a drama that will cut between two time frames and stories - that of a 19-year-old girl from London called Erin, who is holidaying with a wealthy school friend in Israel, and that of her grandfather Len who, during the forties, was part of the British peace-keeping force in what was then Palestine.
A surprise discovery pushes Erin to reconnect with the past and seek out the descendants of the Arab family her grandfather sought to help.
Palestine is a product of a first look deal the broadcaster has with Kosminsky. It will be made by Daybreak Pictures and executive produced by David Aukin.
Speaking about the new projects, head of Channel 4 drama Liza Marshall said: “These three distinctive and radically different projects are very much in the spirit of what Channel 4 drama is about - the best writers and directors having the freedom to make creatively ambitious and bold work.”
Thanks to Toastie
• Andrew Garfield, Paddy Considine, David Morrissey, Sean Bean, Mark Addy and Daniel Mays, are in final discussions to star in the three-part C4/Film 4 movies based on David Peace's Red Riding series of fictional books inspired by the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper and the killer who murdered little girls in West Yorkshire in the late Seventies and early Eighties.
Producers at C4 and Revolution Films are still negotiating with leading actors for other major roles.
Garfield would play Edward Dunford, a young crime reporter who, in the first film 1974 (directed by Julian Jarrold), stumbles on the truth behind a schoolgirl's murder.
That film - and the final one, 1983 - have echoes of the real-life murder of Lesley Molseed in 1975 and the later freeing of Stefan Kiszko, who spent years in jail before a judge ruled that a miscarriage of justice had taken place.
Addy will play a lawyer, John Piggott; Morrissey will play Det Supt Maurice Jobson; and Mays has the part of Michael Myshkin, a man jailed for child murders, in the film 1983 - which Anand Ticker directs.
The middle film, 1980, directed by James Marsh, will star Paddy Considine as a top policeman asked by the Home Office to spur on the hunt for the Ripper.
Bean will play a swan-obsessed architect. Tony Grisoni has written the screenplays and the films will be shown next year.
Over a seven year span beginning in 1974 the Yorkshire Ripper otherwise known as Peter Suticliffe murdered 13 women before his capture in 1981. This event spawned a numerous amount of books to be written about him including David Pearce's "Red Riding Quartet". Today Variety reports that UK pubcaster Channel 4 will be prepping a triology of films based on those novels.
The three films will be made on a total budget of $10 million with a seperate director for each film. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas scribe will adapt the books into three films and will weave the second book Nineteen Seventy Seven into the other three. Julian Jarrold will direct “Nineteen Seventy Four,” James Marsh will direct “Nineteen Eighty” and Anand Tucker will direct “Nineteen Eighty Three.”
In the UK the films will be televised and then possibly play theatrically. Overseas however the films will be packaged strictly as a theatrical run so we may be able to see all of them on the silver screen. Keep it here for more.
UK's Channel 4 is developing a trilogy of films revolving around the hunt for the notorious Yorkshire Ripper serial killer, reports Variety.
The three crime films Revolution Films is producing for Channel 4 are based on three of the four books in British novelist David Peace's "Red Riding Quartet," which is set in Yorkshire in the 1970s and early '80s.
The storylines cover police corruption and perversion of justice in the hunt for the Ripper from 1975 until his detection in 1981, when Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women. He is serving multiple life sentences.
Three directors, all of whom have previously worked with Film 4 on features, are aboard to helm the project, which is budgeted at $10 million in total. Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane) will direct "Nineteen Seventy Four," James Marsh (Man on Wire) will direct "Nineteen Eighty" and Anand Tucker (And When Did You Last See Your Father?) will direct "Nineteen Eighty Three."
Tony Grisoni, who wrote the screenplay for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, has adapted the three Peace books. Elements from Peace's second book -- "Nineteen Seventy Seven" -- will be woven into the three pics.
The films are being made as a TV series, with a UK theatrical release likely to follow.
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