Independent Entertainment will launch gross sales in Cannes on MARIA, author/director Simon Amstell’s follow-up to his critically acclaimed function Benjamin, which is able to shoot within the UK and US in Autumn 2022.
Produced by EMU Films (Benediction, Small Axe) MARIA will function Academy Award Nominee Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything, On The Basis Of Sex, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) within the title position of a younger girl with a historical past of operating from actuality. Struggling to simply accept her age, her boyfriend’s love and her father’s indifference, Maria spots a possibility to really feel younger, free and fascinating at her father’s wedding ceremony, the place she meets Raffy, her new stepbrother. Their apparent, if inconvenient, sexual chemistry is made worse by the information that her father has been identified with a terminal sickness.
Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton; Broadchurch) will play Maria’s boyfriend Eddie with Jason Isaacs (Mass, The Death Of Stalin, Harry Potter) confirmed as Maria’s father.
Louise Palmkvist Hansen will produce for EMU Films. Amstell will even function Executive Producer, alongside EMU Films’ Michael Elliott, Jim Mooney and Walli Ullah, and Cora Palfrey and Sarah Lebutsch from Independent Entertainment. Joining the inventive group are Director of Photography Adam Gillham (I May Destroy You), Editor Rebecca Lloyd (American Honey, Cow), Emmy successful Casting Director Theo Park (Ted Lasso, the upcoming The People We Hate on the Wedding) and Mercury Music Prize successful composer James Righton who reunites with Amstell having scored Benjamin in addition to Amstell’s stand-up particular ‘Set Free’.
Amstell’s award-winning profession in comedy, on stage and tv contains the BBC collection Grandma’s House which he additionally starred in. He made his debut function Carnage in 2017, with Benjamin following in 2018.
His memoir ‘Help’ was revealed by Penguin Random House in 2019. As a stand-up, he has toured Britain, the US and Australia, most lately with the acclaimed present ‘Spirit Hole’. His earlier present ‘Set Free’ was filmed as a Netflix particular.
Sarah Lebutsch for Independent Entertainment feedback:
We are thrilled to be launching MARIA on the first in-person movie marketplace for two years, reuniting with our proficient companions at EMU Films and dealing with author/director Simon Amstell, whose distinctive and hilarious voice we've got lengthy admired. Combined with this terrific solid of actors, we've got little question MARIA would be the entertaining, well timed, female-led comedy all of us want proper now!
Louise Palmkvist Hansen for EMU Films feedback:
EMU is delighted to reunite with Independent Entertainment for Simon Amstell’s new bittersweet comedy. With MARIA, Simon explores the method of development with such vulnerability and understanding that we couldn’t see anybody however Felicity Jones personifying Maria’s complexities. With Jonathan Bailey and Jason Isaacs additionally hooked up, we’re excited to see such a proficient group of actors guided by Simon’s imaginative and prescient of a lady’s journey to simply accept mortality, accountability, and finally herself.
Simon Amstell feedback:
I’m extremely excited to start capturing ‘Maria’ this 12 months with Felicity Jones. Our hope is that making a movie about our tradition’s worry of ageing and loss of life shall be an absolute sensation.
Independent Entertainment’s Sarah Lebutsch, Head of Sales, will deal with worldwide gross sales worldwide with all rights obtainable.