UK sales outfit Stealth Media join Belgrade’s Delirium and London’s Film and Music Entertainment (F&ME) to Handle International sales on The Porcupine by Booker Prize Winning Author Julian Barnes. In addition the Polish Film Institute (PISF) confirms Production Finance.
F&ME, which is just coming to the end of post production on EPIC an international co-production written by Polish writer and winner of the top prize in Gdynia this year for Ida, Pawel Pawlikowski and directed by British helmer Ben Hopkins. The film, which shot in Georgia early this year will complete post production in the next weeks in Georgia after cutting in Berlin.
In addition to this, the Polish Film Institute has confirmed production finance on another international co-production, this time The Porcupine by Booker Prize Winning Author Julian Barnes. Downey was the UK co-producer on Andrzej Jakimowski’s Toronto success IMAGINE, which picked up the Best Sound prize in Gdynia and is the Polish member’s popular choice for the European Film Academy’s European Film Awards. The other candidate, In the Name of having been included as a decision of the board.
“We are also in active discussions with a number of Polish film makers,” said Downey in Gdynia, “ to come on board as partners. We will definitely support Andrzej Jakimowski’s next project after the excellent success of Imagine, and we also have a long-gestating project with Urszula Antoniak for an English language movie.”
In another move Stealth Media World Sales has boarded F&ME and Delerium’s adaptation of Julian Barnes’ 1992 novel The Porcupine, directed by Berlinale Audience Award winning film maker Srdjan Dragojevic. The films will shoot in the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Macedonia in February 2014, with post production and music composition taking place in Poland.n addition to Stealth joining the production, additional finance has been confirmed by the Polish Film Institute (PISF) in their latest round of funding decisions via Andrzej Jakimowski’s ZaiR company; and from the Ukranian State Film Agency via Olga Zhurzhenko’s Ukr kino
“With the support of the Polish Film Institute (PISF) and Ukrainian fund, we are now in a position to green-light the film,” says F&ME producer Mike Downey, “We do have a couple of applications outstanding but, we have take the decision to proceed into an early prep, with full prep getting underway in late November 2013. We have had an extraordinary amount of support from both West and East Europe for this English language adaptation of Julian Barnes’ key novel.”
The novel has been adapted for the big screen by Dragojevic and will be produced by Delirium’s Biljana Prvanovic along with Dragojevic and Film and Music Entertainment’s (F&ME) Mike Downey and Sam Taylor. Co-producers are Departures Film from Germany with funding from MDM, Camera Ltd from Bulgaria with investment from the Bulgarian State Fund, Drugi Plan from Croatia with backing from Croatian Audiovisual Centre; Macedonia’s Sektor Film, Romania’s Elefant Films with the Premier Fund in the UK confirmed and with applications pending to the Macedonian Film Fund and the Romanian Film Fund.
Casting has continued on this project with the attachment of award winning German Actress Franziska Petri. Petri was most recently starring in the Russian film Betrayal and is known for her memorable performances in Vanessa Jopp’s Forget America, and X-Film’s Das Herz is ein dunkeler Wald.
The lead role of Peter Solinsky in the film will be taken by Karl Markovics the Austrian actor fresh from Detlef Buck’s von Humboldt story, Measuring the World. Opposite Markovics will play ex-Yugoslav acting legend Rade Serbedzija as “The Porcupine” – the old school ex-communist dictator Stoyo Petkanov, who conducts a formidable defence in the post Communist witch hunt that follows after the fall of Communism. Serbedzija’s credits include: Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Space Cowboys, Mission Impossible II, Snatch, Batman Begins and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.
The film, which is expected to begin pre-production in late Autumn 2013 and shoot in February 2014.
For further information on The Porcupine:
Tanja Lunardelli, Film and Music Entertainment, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. +44 207 255 2834
