Projects matching: Simon Cellan Jones

Synopsis

Set over the course of a single day in June 1804, Beethoven arrives at the Viennese palace of his patron, Prince Lobokowitz, to hear his radical, new masterpiece, the 3rd Symphony for the first time.
 
With music by the acclaimed Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and starring Ian Hart.

Synopsis

When Stevie meets Neil on the day he comes to deliver her new kitchen, it's already too late for love at first sight. Stevie's already five minutes pregnant by her Italian footballer husband Andrea; and it's too late for Neil too - his wife Jenny has already sent off for an African child to adopt.

But too late or otherwise, love at first sight is exactly what happens. How can Neil and Stevie get out of their mistaken marriages and into each other's arms? Simple really - while Neil contemplates suicide under the Angel of the North, his wife is run over on her way to buy a pint of milk.

Andrea proves harder to shift, but eventually, via the arms of a twenty year old beautician, tells the truth (in perfect English, too) about what he really thinks of women.

Is perfect harmony in sight, in this comedy set in Newcastle?

Synopsis

Some Voices has come a long way from its theatrical origins. The journey started when Elinor Day, then at the BBC, saw Joe Penhall's acclaimed play about two brothers, one of whom is schizophrenic, at London's Royal Court theatre. "I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it," says Day, who commissioned Penhall to adapt it as a film script. "Penhall has such an original vision of the world."



Day took Some Voices with her when she moved to FilmFour, where Paul Webster liked it and agreed to commission re-writes. Penhall reworked the script thoroughly over four years, finding a visual equivalent for the "gothic, heightened naturalism" of the play's dialogue. The result, Penhall says, is "a film based loosely on the play, rather than an adaptation", with the slide back into illness of schizophrenic Ray (Daniel Craig) depicted in imaginative imagery rather than words.



FilmFour brought Simon Cellan Jones on board to direct. Although it is his feature debut, the director had an impressive track record in television, including the Bafta-winning Our Friends In The North.



The story is set in Shepherd's Bush, west London, where Cellan Jones lives and Penhall used to. The film was shot on location in six weeks, with a handheld camera capturing the locals' everyday life. "Every now and again you would get people looking into the camera and yelling, but we would just have to let it go," says Cellan Jones.



Some Voices premiered in Directors' Fortnight at Cannes this year.