Baltic Event Co-Production Market
Untitled Julian Jarrold Love Story
Los Angeles, late ‘40s. Our heroine is a young woman at the peak of her career in the movies. However, under all the glamour and fame, she feels trapped into a patriarchal system which concedes her no artistic freedom. But her life is destined to change when she stumbles upon an unknown European film screened in a small, dilapidated cinema: the rawness of its story, the genuineness of its images, are nothing she’s ever seen in Hollywood. Captured and irreparably fascinated, she will soon make a choice that will forever change the course of her career: to leave behind all the glitz of her life in America, and travel to Europe to meet the director who brought to life such an unrecognised masterpiece.
The film will center on the romantic tribulations of our two protagonists, caught in a web of guilt, desire and escape. There is an austere beauty to the story. We want to capture the adventure and challenge of our heroine’s journey – what could make a woman of 1940s Hollywood sacrifice her fame, fortune and marriage? Was it love for a man, or the artistic freedom he offers? Or is she, in fact, escaping something she wasn’t prepared to confront?
Our heroine tries to take action, follows her desires in a world where women were restricted, judged and often forced into conformity. Breaking from the expectations of how she should conduct herself takes bravery and determination. There are pertinent similarities to now, with the shift towards greater representation of diversity, and the #MeToo movement. Our film prefigures some of these issues and sensibilities. Can a woman break with the system and thrive? Can she do what men have done for years and not be destroyed?
Julian Jarrold is a 6-time BAFTA and Emmy nominated English director. His films include: Kinky Boots, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Joel Edgerton; Becoming Jane, with Anna Hathaway and James McAvoy; the 2008 adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, starring Ben Wishaw, Matthew Goode and Hayley Atwell; A Royal Night Out, starring Emily Watson, Rupert Everett and Sarah Gadon. Jarrold has also directed several TV episodes of the popular Netflix series The Crown. Prior to that, his TV work include the successful HBO TV movie The Girl, exploring the turbulent relationship between Alfred Hitchcock (Toby Jones) and actress Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller), and the 1999 adaptation of Great Expectations, starring Ioan Gruffudd.
Merlin Merton is Producer and Head of Film at Paradox House, a merge of three previous companies (Blue Shadows Films, Ion Films, and Bridge The Moon). Under Blue Shadows Films, Merlin has been an Executive Producer on 10,000 Saints starring Oscar-nominees Ethan Hawke and Hailee Steinfeld which premiered at Sundance; and Wild Oats starring Oscar-winners Shirley MacLaine and Jessica Lange. In terms of debut director, he produced Butterfly Kisses winner of the Crystal Bear at Berlin, and Anna, nominated for the Cannes: Palme d’Or for shorts.
PARADOX HOUSE brings together three banners that: develop and produce films in-house; provide sales; and market both in-house and for external films and corporations. Find more about us at: www.paradoxhouse.co.uk
ZENTROPA ENTERTAINMENTS, is a Danish film company started in 1992 by director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen. Zentropa is named after the train company Zentropa in the film Europa (1991), which started the collaboration between von Trier and Jensen. It has produced over 70 feature films and has become the largest film production company in Scandinavia. It owns a number of subsidiary companies in Europe. Zentropa is also responsible for creating a large studio complex called Filmbyen (Film City), where both Zentropa and many other film-related companies are located. Zentropa may be best known for creating the Dogme 95 movement, leading to such acclaimed films as Idioterne (1998), Festen (1998) and Mifunes sidste sang (1999).