For the third year, the UK's three leading financiers, the BFI, BBC Films and Film4, in collaboration with the British Council and the UK government's 'Great' campaign, will be showcasing up-and-coming UK talent in Cannes via the ‘Great 8’ program. Scroll down for the lineup. Highlighted on Tuesday May 14 during a…

EXCLUSIVE: Focus Features, Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk outfit Pastel and BBC Films have teamed up on Eliza Hittman (Beach Rats) feature Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Written and directed by Hittman, the film is an intimate portrayal of two teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania. Faced with an unintended…

The Favourite star Rachel Weisz is to star and produce in the forthcoming feature adaptation of Max Porter's novel Lanny. The book, published this month, tells the story of a boy who goes missing from a village sixty miles outside of London. BBC Films and The Bureau will produce. The book's blurb: There's a village…

EXCLUSIVE: The Favourite producer Element Pictures has set its next movie to go into production: the intimate, female-fronted drama Herself, which is set against the housing crisis. Element will produce with Catastrophe star and co-writer Sharon Horgan’s Merman. Set in Dublin, Herself is the story of young mother…

UK artist/director Rapman, a.k.a Andrew Onwubolu, is set to direct Blue Story, a feature film which he also wrote based on his short video trilogy of the same name. Paramount Pictures acquired the worldwide distribution rights and is aiming to release the pic sometime this year. BBC Films developed and co-financed the…

EXCLUSIVE: French sales outfit Charades has boarded its first UK production in the shape of BBC Films and BFI-backed Lynn And Lucy, from first-time feature filmmaker Fyzal Boulifa and producer Camilla Bray (Oranges And Sunshine). Written and directed by Boulifa, a two-time winner of the Illy Prize for Best Short Film…

BBC Films has appointed Claudia Yusef as Head Of Development. Reporting directly to Director of BBC Films, Rose Garnett, Yusuf will take up her role in January 2019 and will be part of the BBC Films' management team. Yusuf most recently served as Head Of Development for UK production firm Number 9 Films, producer of Co…

Production is under way on Altitude Film Entertainment and Citrus Films’ family movie Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans, based on the popular children’s book series by Terry Deary and illustrated by Martin Brown. Shooting now on location in the UK and Bulgaria, the film will cast the antics of the Roman…

Veteran Brit auteur Ken Loach, whose previous movie I, Daniel Blake won the director his second Palme d’Or, is under way on latest feature Sorry We Missed You. eOne will release in the UK in 2019. The film reunites Loach with his regular writer Paul Laverty and producer Rebecca O'Brien. Shoot takes place in Newcastle…

Ben Wheatley's (Free Fire) seventh feature, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, will air in the UK on BBC Two over Christmas after its London Film Festival (Oct 10-21) world premiere. Following LFF, the comedy-drama will screen around the UK in a limited run of Q&A sessions and will forego a theatrical run in favour of a…

The BFI’s Deputy Head Of Press Emma Hewitt is joining BBC Films in a newly created role to head up communications. BBC Films is bringing comms in-house and Hewitt, who has served at the BFI since 2011, will be responsible for overall brand strategy and delivery across the division's press, marketing and digital…

David Schwimmer is exec producing a television adaptation of British stage play Love for the BBC. The Friends star is one of the team behind the feature-length film, which is being produced by McMafia producer Cuba Pictures. Love, written and directed by National Theatre Artist in Residence Alexander Zeldin, tells the…