Lenny Abrahamson starts shooting The Little Stranger

6 July 2017

 

July 6th 2017 marks the commencement of principal photography in the UK of the feature film The Little Stranger, based on Sarah Waters’ best-selling novel.

The film is directed by Lenny Abrahamson (Oscar nominated for Best Director for Room) and stars Domhnall Gleeson (Brooklyn) as Dr Faraday; Golden Globe winner Ruth Wilson (The Affair) as Caroline Ayres; BAFTA winner Will Poulter (The Revenant) as Roderick Ayres; and Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling (45 Years) as Mrs Ayres.

The Little Stranger is a chilling ghost story written by BAFTA nominee Lucinda Coxon (The Danish Girl) adapted from Sarah Waters’ novel of the same name.

The Little Stranger tells the story of Dr Faraday, the son of a housemaid, who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. During the long hot summer of 1948, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked. The Hall has been home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries. But it is now in decline and its inhabitants - mother, son and daughter - are haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life. When he takes on his new patient, Faraday has no idea how closely, and how terrifyingly, the family’s story is about to become entwined with his own.

The film is produced by Gail Egan (The Constant Gardener), Andrea Calderwood (The Last King of Scotland) and Ed Guiney (Room); and executive produced by Cameron McCracken for Pathé, Daniel Battsek for Film4, Andrew Lowe for Element Pictures, Celine Haddad for the Irish Film Board and Tim O’Shea for Ingenious.

Director of Photography is Ole Birkeland (The Crown), with costumes by Steven Noble (BAFTA nominee for The Theory of Everything) and hair and make-up by Sian Grigg (Oscar nominee for The Revenant). Simon Elliott (The Iron Lady and BAFTA TV winner for Bleak House) is Production Designer.

Pathé will distribute the film in the UK, France and Switzerland. Focus Features acquired the film from Pathé International for distribution throughout the rest of the world. Focus will release the film domestically and Universal Pictures International will distribute THE LITTLE STRANGER in non-Pathé territories.

The Little Stranger is a Focus Features, Pathé, Film4 presentation in association with Ingenious Media and the Irish Film Board, of a Potboiler production, in association with Element Pictures. The film was developed by Film4 with Potboiler.

POTBOILER

Potboiler Productions is a leading UK independent film and television production company headed and run by Gail Egan and Andrea Calderwood. Driven by a passion for producing unique and bold international-scale projects and for working with exceptional talent in front of and behind the camera, their productions include; the John le Carré thriller The Constant Gardener, directed by Fernando Meirelles, starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz who won an Academy Award for her role in the film and Kevin Macdonald’s The Last King of Scotland, which won an Oscar for Forest Whitaker, as well as the critically acclaimed A Most Wanted Man, directed by Anton Corbijn and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rachel McAdams, A Little Chaos, directed by Alan Rickman and starring Kate Winslet, Susanna White’s Our Kind of Traitor, starring Ewan McGregor and David Simon’s ground-breaking Iraq-set mini-series Generation Kill for HBO. Most recently, Potboiler has produced Final Portrait, written and directed by Stanley Tucci, starring Geoffrey Rush and Woman Walks Ahead, written by Steven Knight, directed by Susanna White and starring Jessica Chastain.

 

ELEMENT PICTURES

Element Pictures is headed by Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe, with offices in Dublin and London, encompassing film and television production, distribution, and exhibition. Recent productions include Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer, winner of Best Screenplay at this year’s Cannes Film Festival; Lenny Abrahamson's Academy Award® and Golden Globe Award-winning Room and Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster, winner of the Jury Prize at the 68th Cannes Film Festival and nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Original Screenplay. Currently in post-production are Lanthimos’ new film The Favourite, starring Emma Stone, Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz and Sebastián Lelio’s Disobedience, starring Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz and Alessandro Nivola.

Previous productions include all of Lenny Abrahamson's films (Adam & Paul, Garage, What Richard Did and Frank) as well as Darren Thornton's A Date For Mad Mary, John Michael McDonagh's The Guard and James Marsh's Shadowdancer.

PATHÉ

Pathé operates as a fully integrated film studio in France, the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland. It is involved in all aspects of filmmaking, from development and production through to international sales, distribution and exhibition.

Films produced/distributed by Pathé range from The Queen to Slumdog Millionaire and from Philomena to Selma.

In recent years Pathé’s productions have won 15 BAFTAs (66 nominations) and 13 Oscars (46 nominations).  

Pathé International handles the international marketing and sales of Pathé’s own productions and also acquires third party films for worldwide representation. As one of Europe’s leading sales agents, Pathé International has a significant presence at all major film markets and festivals.

www.pathe.co.uk Twitter @patheuk

FILM4

Film4 is Channel 4 Television’s feature film division. Film4 develops and co-finances films and is known for working with the most distinctive and innovative talent in UK and international filmmaking, whether new or established.

Film4 has developed and co-financed many of the most successful UK films of recent years, Academy Award®-winners such as Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, Asif Kapadia’s box office record breaking documentary Amy, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire and Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady, in addition to critically-acclaimed award-winners such as Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, Chris Morris’s Four Lions, Shane Meadows’ This is England, Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, David Mackenzie’s Starred Up and Yann Demange’s ’71.

Film4’s recent releases include Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire, Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting, Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, Todd Haynes’ Carol, Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster and Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years. Forthcoming releases include Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete, Clio Barnard’s Dark River, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, Rungano Nyoni’s I Am Not a Witch, John Cameron Mitchell’s How To Talk To Girls At Parties, Michael Pearce’s Beast, Paddy Considine’s Journeyman, Toby MacDonald’s Old Boys, Benedict Andrews’ Una and Baltasar Kormákur’s The Oath. Films in production include Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, Bart Layton’s American Animals, Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, Steve McQueen’s Widows, Stephen Merchant’s Fighting With My Family, Sebastián Lelio’s Disobedience, Garth Davis’s Mary Magdalene and Asif Kapadia’s Maradona. For further information please visit www.film4productions.com.

 

IRISH FILM BOARD

Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB) is the national development agency for Irish filmmaking and the Irish film, television and animation industry, investing in talent, creativity and enterprise. Recent successes include the Academy Award nominated films Brooklyn, directed by John Crowley and Room, directed by Lenny Abrahamson and the Golden Globe-nominated Sing Street, directed by John Carney. Forthcoming projects include Nora Twoomey’s The Breadwinner and The Killing of a Sacred Deer by Yorgos Lanthimos. The IFB also supports and promotes the Irish screen industries at major international markets and festivals, promotes inward investment, the use of Ireland as a location for international production. The agency provides a strategic vision for industry training through Screen Training Ireland.

INGENIOUS

For more than 18 years, investors have chosen Ingenious to manage their funds. In that time, we have raised and deployed over £9 billion across our media, real estate and infrastructure operating divisions, including in excess of £1 billion in enterprise investment scheme (EIS) qualifying investments and over £1.3 billion in business relief (BR) qualifying investments. Our philosophy is clear: we help investors find simple solutions to complex problems, while managing their money conservatively. We create value for our clients by identifying, funding and managing compelling investment opportunities.

 

FOCUS FEATURES

Focus Features (www.focusfeatures.com) acquires and produces specialty films for the global market, and holds a library of iconic movies from fearless filmmakers. Current and upcoming domestic releases from Focus include Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, winner of the Best Director award at the 2017 Cannes International Film Festival; the breakneck action-thriller Atomic Blonde, directed by David Leitch and starring Charlize Theron and James McAvoy; Victoria & Abdul, directed by Stephen Frears and starring Judi Dench as Queen Victoria; Darkest Hour, directed by Joe Wright and starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill; the untitled Entebbe project, a gripping political thriller directed by José Padilha and starring Rosamund Pike and Daniel Brühl; Jason Reitman’s new comedy Tully, starring Charlize Theron and written by Diablo Cody; and the untitled new film from Paul Thomas Anderson starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

Focus Features is part of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.