Film London’s Microwave scheme, in partnership with BBC Film and BFI, has helped produce two recent releases – Verve Pictures’ Body of Water and Bulldog Film Distribution’s Looted.
Microwave is Film London’s flagship feature film scheme. It serves to inspire and develop the capital’s best new filmmakers, empowering them to make bold, compelling features that will surprise and inspire global audiences. The scheme was the first low budget feature program in Europe and has been responsible for discovering and developing some of the UK’s most exciting talent.
An initial slate of films was made in partnership with BBC Films between 2006 and 2012. These included Sundance award-winner Lilting, Bafta-nominee Shifty and iLL Manors, which collected three BIFA nominations in 2012. All of the films were released theatrically and distributed around the world.
Microwave’s second slate was developed in partnership with BBC Films and the BFI. The films from slate 2 are Zero, Homebound (formerly titled ‘The Visitor’), Looted, Body of Water, Mari, and Sweetheart.
Upcoming releases
Mari was the first film to launch from the second slate and premiered at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2018 before a UK theatrical run with Verve Pictures.
Looted had its worldwide premiere at Tallinn Black Nights in late 2019 and was awarded the FIPRESCI prize by a jury of international critics. It is released nationwide on 6th November (click here to book the film).
Looted is directed by Rene van Pannevis whose short film Jacked won the Best Short BIFA in 2016 and premiered in Berlin. The film is based on Rene’s own experiences as a young man and stars Charley Palmer Rothwell (Legend), Thomas Turgoose (This Is England), Tom Fisher (Van Helsing) and Morgane Polanski (Vikings).
Also now out is Body of Water from Verve Pictures which recently premiered at Glasgow Film Festival and will be released on the 6th November.
Body of Water explores the murky, fractured and touching complexities of the mother-daughter -grandmother dynamic in the shadow of Stephanie’s destructive eating disorder.
Coming soon
Film London has also taken the Microwave project around the world, running Microschool training and development bootcamps in India, Georgia, Malta, Croatia and Indonesia, and a co-production Lab with Italy’s Apulia Film Commission in 2018.
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