Filming begins on C4 thriller Kiss Me First

21 December 2016

 

Bryan Elsley’s (Skins, Dates) Kiss Me First, an innovative, state-of-the-art thriller and co-production from Kindle Entertainment and Balloon Entertainment for Channel 4 and Netflix has begun filming with a cast of rising stars.

Based on Lottie Moggach's debut novel, Kiss Me First moves between the real and virtual animated worlds. When Leila (Tallulah Haddon, Taboo, The Living and the Dead) stumbles across Red Pill, a secret paradise, hidden on the edges of her favourite game, she meets Tess (Simona Brown, The Night Manager). Tess is everything that Leila is not: hedonistic, impulsive and insatiable. So when Tess turns up in Leila's real life uninvited, Leila's world is forever changed. But then a member of the group mysteriously disappears and Leila begins to suspect that maybe the hidden sanctuary isn't the digital Eden its creator Adrian claims it to be. Now, Leila's real journey begins.

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The 6 x 60’ Channel 4 thriller will combine live action with stunning state-of-the-art computer-generated virtual world sequences to create the parallel worlds of Leila and Tess’ real life and that of their online alter-egos, Shadowfax and Mania.

Kiss Me First continues filming until mid-2017 shooting on location in London and Croatia. It will premiere on Channel 4 in the UK with Netflix premiering the series globally outside the UK. The directors are Misha Manson-Smith and Tom Green.

Bryan Elsley, writer and Executive Producer said: “I’m delighted to be involved in such an innovative project. I’m looking forward to sharing this beautiful marriage between animation and live action in drama.” 

Simon Maxwell Channel 4’s Head of International Drama said: “With Kiss Me First, Bryan Elsley offers us a uniquely authored thriller for the digital age, exploring the fragmentation of identity and reality that's become a phenomenon of the gaming generation.  What do we become when we can be whatever we want? 

Our story tackles this question from every angle - in its most positive, empowering sense and at its darkest and most terrifying.  Bryan's vision has been vividly brought to life by the talents of our young cast, the direction of Misha Manson-Smith and Tom Green and the ground-breaking animation of Axis, into a show unlike any seen before on Channel 4."

Melanie Stokes Joint Managing Director, Kindle Entertainment and Executive Producer said: “I have wanted to create a drama that captures the way the net has impacted young people’s lives and identities for some time. And the combination of Lottie Moggach’’s brilliant debut novel and Bryan’s utterly original response to that proposition delivers far more than I could have ever have hoped for.”

Kiss Me First (6 x 60’) is adapted from Lottie Moggach’s best-selling novel by Bryan Elsley (Skins, Dates). The series will be produced by BAFTA-winning, Kindle Entertainment (Treasure Island, Some Dogs Bite) and Balloon Entertainment (the production company co-owned by Bryan Elsley and Harry Enfield) for Channel 4 and Netflix. Bryan Elsley and Melanie Stokes (Treasure Island, Some Dogs Bite) are Executive Producers on the project and Bradley Adams (The Crow Road,  Dates, Harry and Paul’s History of the Two’s) is the Producer. Kiss Me First was commissioned for Channel 4 by Head of Drama Beth Willis and Simon Maxwell Channel 4’s Head of International Drama.