Feb 2012
LIFETIME
A trip to Sligo in the autumn helped a lot with the feature script. With huge help from Mike and Niall (www.sligeachfilms.ie) we found some great locations. I love to write with real places in my mind. There’s now a developed screenplay ready to send out.
Meanwhile, the short film is an Official Selection in the Byron Bay film festival, Australia, in March (www.bbff.com.au). News awaited from a few other festivals. It has served its purpose anyway, wonderfully, to help me towards the feature.
REMEMBRANCE...
remembered! Just sent out a DVD to someone who tracked me down via the internet. He has memories of this film, shot entirely on location in a part of Plymouth that barely exists now, he tells me. As I said, I like to write with places in mind where I can – the script for Remembrance involved a lot of mooching around that city. Gary Oldman’s first film, I think – good to see him getting the recognition he deserves for Tinker Tailor...
MANCHESTER
My annual talk for MA creative writing students will be on Feb 21 at 6pm, courtesy of the Writing School, Manchester Metropolitan University.
NOT SHUT UP
The Autumn issue featured some of the writing and art that received awards from the Koestler Trust. The new issue, Spring 2012, celebrates the Writers In Prison Network and has just gone out to prisons and secure hospitals throughout the country this month. Buy your sub from the Not Shut Up website!
SEPT 2011
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
There's a festival dedicated to the work of Virginia Woolf in Cambridge, and so there's a rare chance to see my adaptation of Woolf's famous novel, to be screened at the Arts Picture House. I'll be there for a Q & A. It's on Sunday October 2nd at 3pm.
For more information visit: http://tothelighthousecambridgeshire.co.uk/?page_id=70
Tickets go on sale a week before. http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Arts_Picturehouse_Cambridge
or phone: 0871 902 5720
July 2011
LIFETIME
Due to be shown in the Galway Film Fleadh on Friday July 8th, the third outing following the two film festivals in the U.S – Chicago Movies & Music and the Bodega Bay Short Film Festival.
NOT SHUT UP
The summer issue is out – take a look at the website, as we've slashed the cost of a subscription.
May 2011
LIFETIME
Where did April go? Pleased to say LIFETIME was successfully screened in Chicago and I'm now about to take it to the Short Film Corner in the Cannes Film Festival to try my luck there.
WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU
Now out. MY DOG TULIP, the non-fiction version of Ackerley's profound relationship with his dog, is in a few cinemas now as well and might lead to a revival of interest in him.
March 2011
LIFETIME
This has been selected for the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival. Should you be there – it's on Saturday April 16 at 6pm! www.cimmfest.org I shall be showing this also for my annual lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University. I'll also be showing a clip from WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU and talking about that film.
February 2011
WAITING FOR YOU
This feature script, co-written with Charles Garrad who will direct it, has reached the stage where we have a producer in the UK and another in France (where most of the film is set) and the task now is to attract the right cast.
LIFETIME
This short film is now finally complete with a dubbing mix by Mark Ayres and is being submitted to various festivals. There is a feature script I've been working on since we shot LIFETIME last summer that is closely linked to it. This now has the working title SELLING THE CELLO.
WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU
Due to be released on DVD by Guerilla Films on April 4
NOT SHUT UP
The Spring issue is now out. Subscribe or donate! – www.notshutup.org