Pre- Production News
EXCLUSIVE: Details revealed about Ruby Films drama due to shoot February; project moves from Focus.
Pathe has newly boarded
Suffragette, the Film4 and BFI-backed Ruby Films drama, which will star Carey Mulligan.Pathe will distribute the film in the UK and France and will handle international sales.The film will be directed by Sarah Gavron (
Brick Lane) from a script by Abi Morgan, who won an Emmy last month for her work on BBC drama series
The Hour.Morgan, who co-wrote sex addict drama
Shame with Steve McQueen, previously collaborated with Pathe on Margaret Thatcher biopic
The Iron Lady and co-wrote the screenplay for Gavron’s
Brick Lane.
Pathe swooped this week on Suffragette, previously known as The Fury, which was with Focus Features until the recent shakeup at the Universal subsidiary.Sources close to Focus told ScreenDaily that the outfit were big fans of the project but timing meant they could no longer be involved.Mulligan will play Maud, a character described by the production as a “foot soldier of the early feminist movement” who becomes radicalized and turns to violence as a route to change.According to the production, the film “tracks the story of the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.
“These women were not primarily from the genteel educated classes, they were working women who had seen peaceful protest achieve nothing. Radicalized and turning to violence as the only route to change, they were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality - their jobs, their homes, their children and their lives.
“Maud was one such foot soldier. Her fight for dignity is as gripping and visceral as any thriller, it is also heart-breaking and inspirational.” Mulligan, the British actress who has taken starring roles in The Great Gatsby, Inside Llewyn Davis, Drive andShame, was Oscar-nominated for her performance in An Education.
Suffragette will be produced by Faye Ward and Alison Owen (Brick Lane, Jane Eyre, Saving Mr Banks) and executive produced by Film4’s Katherine Butler and Pathe’s Cameron McCracken. Chris Collins is lead exec for the BFI Film Fund
Meryl Streep's Suffragette Drama
Will Be First To
Film In Houses Of
Parliament
The historical drama Suffragette just got a huge boost to
its production value thanks the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament. British
Parliament members have made the unprecedented decision to allow the Meryl
Streep-boasting narrative to shoot on its hallowed and instantly recognizable
grounds, meaning Suffragette will be the first film production to have
ever shot there. Suffragette focuses on the burgeoning feminist
moment of the early 20th Century. We first caught word of the project last
month when 18-time Academy Award nominee Meryl Streep
joined the project along with acclaimed Irish actor Brendon Gleeson.
But as Wootton alludes above, these are not the only exciting talent attached
to the project. The cast also includes such noteworthy British performers as
Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, and Ben Whishaw. Behind the camera,
there's some stellar talent as well.
| Cass Marks - |
| production manager |
| Louise Seymour- | | post-production supervisor |
'Suffragette' film production team visit Parliament
