03/10/2002

Producers Mike Downey and Sam Taylor announced a management buy-out of their company Film & Music Entertainment UK (F.&M.E.) following this week’s announced closure of the German parent company F.A.M.E. AG..
F.&.M.E. was set up early 2001 with the intention to finance, produce or co-produce between 4 and 5 medium-budget films a year. One of the company’s first feature films, Under The Stars, the directorial debut of Christos Georgiou, won several awards including Best First Feature Film at the 25th Montreal International Film festival. Another film, Falcons directed by Icelandic veteran filmmaker Fridrik Thor Fridriksson and starring Keith Carradine, was screened at the last Toronto Film Festival.
The F.&.M.E. line-up also includes Death Watch, a thriller set in the WWI trenches, with Billy Elliot’s revelation Jamie Bell and Hugo Speer (Full Monty). Sold by Odyssey Entertainment and co-produced with Apollo ProMedia in Germany, this film will be released in the UK this autumn by Pathe UK.
Two other films are currently either in or about to be produced: Srdjan Karanovic’s Loving Glances, co-produced with Serbia and France, is a Balkan romantic comedy set during the recent political upheavals in Yugoslavia; and The Enemy, a drama to be directed by Gary Love (Harbour Lights) will be made this autumn on location in the UK and Germany. The film is executive-produced by Billy Elliot’s director Stephen Daldry who also sits on F.&.M.E. advisory board. Before setting up F.&.M.E. , Mike Downey was a co-founder of the trade magazine “Moving Pictures International” and Sam Taylor produced the Golden Lion-winning film Before The Rain.

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