The Island of Lost Souls wins SWM Development Funding
September 16, 2010
Red Room Films has been awarded seed funding by Screen West Midlands to develop an adaptation of Martyn Bedford’s acclaimed novel The Island of Lost Souls with Midlands talent, writer/director Sean Spencer. The novel is a thriller and a love story set in a dystopian, alternative ‘now’, in which the draft has been introduced for 18-25 year olds. Disaffected twenty-four year-old Finn is faced with a stark choice: Go to war, or go on the run and be hunted down as a deserter. If he escapes, there is the promise of a new identity and a new life . If he is caught, the punishment will be brutal. Finn makes the decision to run and escapes into a dangerous, underground world of dissidents and misfits. He washes up on an island, where he is given the identity of a young man, recently lost at sea. But has Finn brought danger with him? Can he win over the man’s young widow Bryher and the hostile islanders? And will he ever escape the blackmailing clutches of the territory’s ruthless, drug-dealing ‘Godfather’ Mr. Skins? The Island of Lost Souls is a piece that asks timely questions about the true legacy of war and the lengths to which people will go for the promise of freedom. Development of the project reunites Producer Claire Ingham with writer/director Sean Spencer who also worked together on the UKFC/SWM ‘Digital Extreme’ short Romance
