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PRODUCTION UK

Fourth iteration of iFeatures launches with three features

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- Selection includes first British feature film in sign language

Fourth iteration of iFeatures launches with three features
Producer Jacob Thomas and writer-director Eva Riley, whose project Perfect Ten has been greenlit (© iFeatures)

Creative England, together with its partners the British Film Institute, BBC Films and Creative Skillset, has revealed the three projects selected for production from the fourth iteration of iFeatures. The scheme is Creative England’s low-budget film initiative, designed to discover, support and develop the next generation of UK feature filmmakers.

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Writer/director Eva Riley and producer Jacob ThomasPerfect Ten is a Brighton based story about a teenage gymnast who finds an escape from her insecurities when her long-lost brother introduces her to the world of scooter crime. Riley studied photography and film in Edinburgh before attending the National Film and Television School, where her graduation film Patriot competed for the short film Palme D’Or in Cannes.

Writer/director Ted Evans and producers Alex Usborne (Notes on Blindness [+see also:
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trailer
interview: James Spinney, Peter Middle…
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]
) and Michelle Eastwood’s Retreat is a Bristol based thriller about a deaf young woman who decides to leave the hearing world to live in an all-deaf commune. Retreat will be the first British feature in sign language. Evans is one of UK’s leading deaf filmmakers and has made a number of television programmes through BBC See Hear and the British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust and he also directed and co-wrote the Paralympic Opening Ceremony film Look Up.

Writer/director Claire Oakley and producer Emily Morgan’s Make Up [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
is a Cornwall-set psychosexual thriller about a young woman who is forced to question her sexuality when another woman stalks her. Oakley has previously made a number of award-winning short films, which screened at festivals such as Toronto, London and Edinburgh. She is co-founder of the collective of female directors Cinesisters.

Zorana Piggott, iFeatures executive producer, said, “The standard of projects on this year’s iFeatures’ slate has been incredibly high and I am very proud that we go forward with Ted Evans and his extraordinary vision for the first British film in sign language, and Eva Riley and Claire Oakley, two powerful new female voices in British cinema.”

Caroline Norbury, CEO, Creative England, said, “Ensuring we develop a new generation of diverse, gender balanced voices in film-making is a huge priority for Creative England and iFeatures, so we are delighted to have green-lit these excellent projects and are honoured to be developing the first film in British Sign Language. The films are in great company following the recent success of Lady Macbeth [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: William Oldroyd
film profile
]
, The Levelling [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and Spaceship [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
.”

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