Kim Farrant is attached to direct a UK psychological thriller produced by Michael Winterbottom's company and a US indie drama as well as developing an ambitious TV anthology series.
The Los Angeles-based director is delighted with the critical and audience responses to her debut film Strangerland, which Transmission launched on about 25 screens on June 11 after its Sydney Film Festival premiere.
The mystery drama starring Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes and Hugo Weaving is set to open in the US on July 10.
Alchemy (formerly Millennium Entertainment) will release the film scripted by Fiona Seres and Michael Kinirons and produced by Naomi Wenck and Macdara Kelleher in cinemas in 15 markets and simultaneously on VOD. She plans to attend the New York premiere.
Farrant is attached to direct Hush Money for Winterbottom and Andrew Eaton’s Revolution Films. The script by Brazilian-born English writer Nico Mensinga follows a groom who is bribed on his wedding day.
It will be Mensinga’s second feature following Titus, the saga of a displaced African American jazz musician trying to come to terms with his troubled past.
The plan is to shoot in Wales in April, with Afolabi Kuti producing. Farrant was recommended to the producers by a US manager friend.
“They sent me the script, I gave them some notes then flew to London to meet them,” she tells IF. “Winterbottom is a great director. He showed me his latest film The Emperor’s New Clothes (a documentary starring Russell Brand, which has just opened in Oz).”
The US film, The Evel (Aka Evel Knievel) Within Me, is based on a true story by US writer Kelley Gibler. Set in 1974, the plot follows an eight-year-old girl who dreams of becoming daredevil Evel Knievel. Farrant likens the tone to “Little Miss Sunshine, only darker.”
Gibler is writing the screenplay with Yada Zamora, whose documentary Kidnapping for Christ won the audience award at the 2014 Slamdance Film Festival.
The producers are Karen Foster (whose day job is a producer at DreamWorks Animation) and Zamora.
Farrant and US writer Dylan Gary have created Random, an 8 x 1 hour series intended to be the first of five inter-connected series with the umbrella title Secret Sex.
The New York-based Gary is writing the scripts which deal with the shadowy sides of sexuality. Farrant is confident Random will secure financing as a US-UK co-production.