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PRODUCTION UK

Richard Billingham commences Ray & Liz

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- Debut feature of Turner-prize nominated artist stars Patrick Romer and Deirdre Kelly

Richard Billingham commences Ray & Liz
Deirdre Kelly and Patrick Romer in Ray & Liz

Turner-prize nominated and Deutsche Börse Prize winning artist Richard Billingham has commenced a three-week shoot at Cranley Heath and Dudley locations on his debut feature Ray & Liz. The film follows the marginalised Billingham family as perform extreme rituals and break cultural taboos as they muddle through a life decided by factors beyond their control. Working with cinematographer Daniel Landin (Under The Skin [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jonathan Glazer
film profile
]
), Billingham returns to the series of photographs that he captured of his family during Thatcher-era Britain to tell a story of everyday conflicts, loneliness, love and loss. 

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The cast includes veteran Patrick Romer (The World is Not Enough), Deirdre Kelly (UK reality star of Benefits Street and Big Brother), Justin Salinger (Everest [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile
]
), Ella Smith (Kill Your Friends [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
) and Tony Way (High-Rise [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
). 

The project has been developed over five years with Jacqui Davies (The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile
]
), a producer who is a recipient of the British Film Institute’s BFI Producer Vision Awards 2016. 

Ray & Liz [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Richard Billingham
film profile
]
is a Primitive Film production in association with Rapid Eye Movies and is financed by the BFI and Ffilm Cymru Wales, in association with Severn Screen.

Billingham rose to fame in 1996 with his photographic series ‘Ray’s a Laugh’, images of family life in his childhood home, a tower block in Cradley Heath in the West Midlands. It was exhibited internationally and featured in the show, Sensation (1997) at The Royal Academy of Arts. He was awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize that year, and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001. His work is held in numerous collections worldwide, including Tate, Arts Council England, the V & A, Moderna Museet Stockholm, the Fotomuseum Winterthur, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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