The script's garnering praise all around. Also, from what I've heard Stanley might have his hands full with this the minute he wraps up VACATION.

By the looks of things, Film Council's been investing in this project quite heavily. This is from their lottery awards.

• 30/08/01 £ 10,000 Graphite Films
• 29/05/02 £ 19,000 Holdings Ecosse Ltd
• 20/04/05 £ 18,250 Holdings Ecosse Ltd

Total amount is close to £50,000 (~$90,000) in about three and a half years. Not too bad at all. A particularly good sign is seeing the latest date, which is about two months ago.

SellOut Pictures is a part of Holdings Ecosse Ltd. I don't know how Graphite Films (Get Real) fits in, but it's likely Stanley had the project set up there for a brief period.

Well, 90.000 dollars are better than nothing, but it's a low amount to produce a movie in the new millenium.

You're confusing the development fund with the production budjet. At this stage, the received grants tend to go to script research, legal fees, developing crew's (writer, director, producer, etc.) fees, script editing, and so on. Film Council's New Cinema Fund is the one that gives money to the actual production budjet, usually between 15-50%. In that sense, I'd say The VIY is pretty well off at the moment.

I see...excellent.

I wonder if there is any news about The Viy, the project seems very interesting and I'm very anxious for any bits of info.

I note that there is a theatre company/troupe out of New York City, called Lightning Strikes, that's put on a play called THE VIY ... written by Richard -- a different Richard -- Harland Smith. Looks ... interesting. The LS website's description makes it sound worthy, but reading a review of it, well, it sounds less impressive. The review was positive, but made the play sound a whole lot more slapstick than I'd want to see ... in something I'd expect to be a little scary.

Could be deceptive, though. Hell, look at Evil Dead. Ok, technically, that's 'splatstick', but still ... I love it!

Obviously, our Richard would not be going in quite that direction ...

The script's currently being worked on by Justin Hopper under Stanley's supervision. Hopper, by the way, is floored by the material he's been given.

Is this film somehow connected to Stanley's version?

No. It's a more faithful retelling of the Gogol short story (whereas Stanleys is an update). It's basically a remake of the 1967 film, which I might add, still works pretty nicely.

Also Mario Bava's LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO (BLACK SUNDAY) was loosely based on that short story - originally, Bava wanted to adapt the real story, then they worked out a pretty stand-alone product...

The Film Council website now lists the project as BEYOND REDEMPTION (VIY). It's possible there's been a name change, might have something to do with them wanting to avoid confusion to the new Russian film.

Strange, isn't it?

This is an old article, but I thought I'd post it anyway. Sunset Song was, at the time, something of a flagship-project for Bob Last's Sellout Pictures. Their first dip into feature films was co-producing the Gillian Anderson-starred THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, by Terence Davies. Sunset Song would've been the next step of that partnership, with Sellout Pictures now acting in a more principle role in sheparding the project towards production.

Only a few days before the publication of this article, VIY had received another batch of development funds from the Film Council, and another two months later a new writer had been brought in to hone Stanley's script further. In late 2005/early 2006, Sellout Pictures removed all mentions of upcoming feature film projects from their website, and omitted names such as Terence Davies and Richard Stanley.

--

English turn a deaf ear to Sunset Song
By A Correspondent

The Times, April 25, 2005


PLANS to film a classic Scottish novel have collapsed after the project was turned down by English backers.

Terence Davies, who was to direct Sunset Song, based on the novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, had secured Scottish and international funding. But the project has been postponed after the BBC, Channel 4 and the UK Film Council rejected it.

Davies, who won international acclaim for his adaptation of The House of Mirth, had planned to cast an American actress, such as Kirsten Dunst, in the lead role of Chris Guthrie.

The book was one of the 100 Best Scottish novels in a poll by The List magazine. It was written in the Doric dialect, which would had been watered down for an international audience.

But Bob Last, the film’s producer, said yesterday that it looked as if audiences would have to wait. “This would have been a major film for Scotland. “We had international money, but neither the Film Council nor Channel 4 nor the BBC could be persuaded to get involved. Until we figure out a way of getting another partner in the UK then it’s on the back-burner.”

Sunset Song was published in 1932 and provoked controversy because of themes of incest, suicide, infanticide and alcoholism. It has since become one of Scotland’s best-loved titles, studied in schools across the country and turned into a BBC drama in 1971.

Around £7 million would be needed to make Sunset Song and Scottish Screen has offered £500,000 of lottery money.

Ian Thomson, of the UK Film Council, insisted that there was no bias against Scottish novels in the decision not to offer financial support. He said: “It’s not about the type of film. The Film Council tries to make as wide a range of films as possible. Not all great novels transfer that easily to the big screen. I think it’s hard for any writer or a producer to be able to do that. And we can’t fund everything.” A spokesman for BBC Films confirmed it had turned down a request for finance. He said: “They are not in a position to help everybody, even a great film-maker like Terence Davies.”

- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1584529,00.html