ZEPHYR FILMS
uk
Contact
CHRIS CURLING
Producer
ANYA RYZHENKOVA
Producer
+44 (0) 207 794 0011
Company Profile
Zephyr Films has spent twenty years telling stories through the medium we love - film. From the Oscar® nominated THE LAST STATION to the ground-breaking and award-winning MY SON THE FANATIC, we strive to create original movies that resonate with audiences.
Forthcoming releases in 2019 are Marcus Rosenmuller’s THE KEEPER starring David Kross, Freya Mavor, John Henshaw and Harry Melling coming out in Germany, in March 2019 and the UK and Ireland in April 2019 and SPECIAL COUPLE, the first UK-China co-production that will premiere in China in the spring of 2019.
Zephyr Films’ past highlights include Isabel Coixet’s THE BOOKSHOP, starring Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy and Patricia Clarkson that was screened in Official Selection at the Berlinale 2018 and went on to win numerous awards including a Goya for Best Film. THE LAST STATION that was nominated for two Academy Awards®, two Golden Globes® and five Independent Spirit Awards. Other successful international releases include HANNIBAL RISING, PENELOPE, ZERO THEOREM and DEATH DEFYING ACTS.
Many of Zephyr’s films are European Co-Productions and Producer Chris Curling likes the challenge of bringing great stories and characters from all parts of Europe to the screen and working with directors and producers from across the World.
For Chris the greatest pleasure of the producer’s work is collaboration with writers and directors to distil and enhance the stories they are telling at script stage, on the set and in the cutting room. He has been successful in getting Zephyr’s films financed and distributed to audiences around the globe, and has been involved in raising the finance for and the successful production of thirty feature films.
Films on Zephyr’s current slate include Sue Brook’s LOVESONG, Roger Spottiswoode’s ARTEMISIA and Dima Hamdan’s AMNESIA and STAYING ALIVE written by Jessica Townsend.
Chris Curling
Anya Ryzhenkova
Company Highlights
FALLING 2020
Format: Drama
Director: Viggo Mortensen
Screenplay: Viggo Mortensen
Cast: Lance Henriksen, Viggo Mortensen, Laura Linney, Sverrir Gudnason, Hannah Gross, Terry Chen
Ohn (Viggo Mortensen) lives with his partner, Eric (Terry Chen), and their daughter, Mónica, in California, far from the traditional rural life he left behind years ago. John’s father, Willis (Lance Henriksen), a headstrong man from a bygone era, lives alone on the isolated farm where John grew up. Willis’s mind is declining, so John brings him west, hoping that he and his sister, Sarah (Laura Linney), can help their father find a home closer to them. Their best intentions ultimately run up against Willis’s angry refusal to change his way of life in any way.
Selected at: Cannes Film Festival, Toronto IFF, San Sebastian IFF
TRAUTMANN / THE KEEPER 2019
Format: Drama
Director: Marcus H. Rosenmüller
Screenplay: Robert Marciniak, Marcus H.Rosenmüller, Nicholas J. Schofield
Cast: David Kross, Freya Mavor, Angus Barnett, Gary Lewis
An extraordinary love story between a young English woman and a German PoW, who together overcome prejudice, public hostility and personal tragedy.
Winner of the BEST FILM at the 2019 BAVARIAN FILM AWARDS
Won Supporting Actor at the TIAN TIAN awards at the Beijing IFF
THE BOOKSHOP 2018
Format: Drama
Director: Isabel Coixet
Screenplay: Isabel Coixet, based on the novel by Penelope Fitzgerald
Cast: Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson
Set in a small town in 1959 England, it is the story of a woman who decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield.
Won Best Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Goya Awards 2018
Best Picture at the Jose Maria Forque Awards 2018
Best Artistic Direction and Original Score at the Gaudi Awards
12 Gaudi nominations
12 Goya nominations
THE LAST STATION 2009
Format: Drama / Romance
Director: Michael Hoffman
Screenplay: Michael Hoffman, based on the novel by Jay Parini
Cast: Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Christopher Plummer, Paul Giamatti
THE LAST STATION a film about the difficulty of living with love and the impossibility of living without it. The film is set during the last year of the life and turbulent marriage of Lev Tolstoy, the great Russian writer, and his wife, the redoubtable and flamboyant Sofya. The conflict between wife and husband grows to breaking point, when Tolstoy’s devoted disciple, Vladimir Chertkov, urges him to sign a new will leaving the rights and royaltiesto his work to the Russian people rather than to his family. A witness to Sofya and Tolstoy’s disintegrating relationship is Valentin, Tolstoy’s new secretary, whose own love for the beautiful and feisty Masha acts as counterpoint to the dying love Sofya and Tolstoy.
Academy Awards and Golden Globes nominations: Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer