‘Falling for Figaro.’
Ben Lewin’s Falling for Figaro, a romantic comedy starring Danielle Macdonald and Joanna Lumley, is among 30 titles from around the world that will feature at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) outside the official selection.
TIFF’s industry and festival programming teams chose the line-up from 29 countries for TIFF Industry Selects, which will screen to accredited users on the festival’s press and industry platform TIFF Digital Cinema Pro.
Billed as the first ever Scottish-Australian co-production, the rom-com scripted by Lewin (The Sessions) and Allen Palmer follows Macdonald as Millie, a brilliant young fund manager who decides to leave her unfulfilling job and long-term boyfriend to chase her lifelong dream of becoming an opera singer in the Scottish Highlands.
She begins intense vocal training lessons with renowned singing teacher and former opera diva Meghan Geoffrey-Bishop (Lumley) and meets fellow student Max (Flea Bag and Little Birds’s Hugh Skinner).
Millie naively thinks they’ll be great mates but Max has eyes only for the prize. The supporting cast includes Gary Lewis and Shazad Latif.
“It is both exciting and daunting to be in the marketplace with so much uncertainty surrounding release strategies but Falling for Figaro is an entertaining, feel-good movie which is just what everyone needs right now,” Judi Levine, who produced with Philip Wade (I Am Mother) and Scotland’s Arabella Page Croft (Sunshine on Leith) tells IF.
The producers raised the budget from Screen Australia, Film Victoria, Creative Scotland and private equity, with Tim White as the executive producer. Luciana Arrighi is the production designer.
The film was shot in Scotland over December-January and post production began in Melbourne in February. “We managed to continue through the COVID-19 restrictions, even recording with an orchestra during the brief reduction in Melbourne’s lockdown restrictions,” Levine says.
WestEnd Films is the international sales agent and Umbrella Entertainment will release in Australia