04/10/2016 - Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci feature in the cast

Director Richard Eyre will begin principal photography at London locations on The Children’s Act from mid-October based on British writer Ian McEwan’s adaptation of his 2014 novel of the same name. The film will follow a respected High Court judge in London who specialises in ethically complicated family law cases. While she tastes success at work, her marriage is facing difficulties. The judge comes across a case where a 17-year-old boy with leukaemia who refuses life saving blood transfusion as it is against his religious beliefs.

The cast includes the BAFTA, Academy Award and Golden Globe winning Emma Thompson who is in current release Bridget Jones’s Baby [+see also:
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film profile], the Golden Globe winning Stanley Tucci (Spotlight) and emerging actor Fionn Whitehead who makes his debut in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming World War II drama Dunkirk.

Duncan Kenworthy, producer of global successes like Love Actually, Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral, is producing. BBC Films (UK) is co-financing with FilmNation Entertainment (US). FilmNation is also the international sales agent for the film and has already sold out worldwide rights since introducing the project at Toronto in September. European sales include to eOne for the UK, Telemunchen for Germany, BIM for Italy, Vértigo for Spain, Cinéart for Benelux, Scanbox for Scandinavia, and Spentzos for Greece.

Eyre is a British veteran who made his feature debut with The Ploughman’s Lunch (1983), written by McEwan, for which he won Best Film at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. In 2002, he won the Humanitas Prize for Iris and the film also won a Christopher Award and was nominated for the Golden Bear at Berlin and two BAFTAs. His Stage Beauty [+see also:
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film profile] (2004) won the Audience Award at the Cambridge Film Festival. Notes on a Scandal [+see also:
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film profile] (2006) won the Teddy Audience Award at Berlin and was nominated for a BAFTA. In 2015, he directed the television film The Dresser for the BBC. 

Several of McEwan’s novels have been adapted for the screen including The Comfort of Strangers, The Cement Garden, The Innocent, Enduring Love and Atonement.