Stranger credits

Writer/Director - Simon Rumley

One the UK's most prolific independent film-makers, Simon Rumley produced and directed a loose trilogy exploring London youth culture during the 1990s.

The films, Strong Language, The Truth Game and Club Le Monde, received high critical praise - “essential viewing...a genuine British surprise” - The Times, “engrossing, ambitious and funny” - London Evening Standard, “brilliantly conceived and imaginatively structured” - Total Film, “compelling...I was transfixed” - Daily Mail, “a treat...fascinating and original” - Flicks Magazine, “spirited and clever, observant and witty” - Empire, “a definitive work on young Britain” - Penthouse, “the most striking British film for months...vivid, revealing, fascinating” - The Observer, “one of the decade’s most important documents of British youth culture” - Film Review. Simon’s style in the trilogy was likened to the films of Eric Rohmer and Richard Linklater.

Switching genres, Simon directed a US-based short thriller called The Handyman. A winner of the British Short Screenplay Competition (whose judges included Michael Kuhn, Steve Woolley, Nik Powell and Kenneth Branagh) and awarded Best Short Film at the Sitges Film Festival, The Handyman starred Greta Scacchi and Bill Sage. Simon has subsequently developed a pilot for the UK Film Council for his project Anatomy of Grief, and has recently become very active in the international contemporary art scene, curating acclaimed exhibitions in Europe and the US.

Simon’s latest feature is the harrowing and serious psychological horror, The Living and The Dead, which premiered in Rotterdam in 2006. The film, which Simon wrote and directed after watching his mother die of cancer, has gone on to play almost 40 festivals worldwide, picking up 15 awards and incomparable reviews (“a minor masterpiece”- Channel Four, “Excellent” -aintitcool.com, “Near-brilliant” - Variety, “one of the best films I’ve ever seen” - Film Threat, “intensely rewarding” - Time Out). The Living and the Dead has so far sold worldwide to over 20 major territories.

Currently being hailed as one of the key forces in the revival of a British horror thriller genre, Simon is signed to write and direct a segment of the much publicised controversial horror anthology Little Deaths, shooting in 2008.

Production Information*

Genre: CHASE THRILLER

Writer/Director: SIMON RUMLEY

Producers: BOB PORTAL & SIMON MARKHAM

NATACHA DEVILLERS & WENDY KUAN

Budget: $1.5 MILLION

*credits not contractual

Producers - Les Petites Lumieres & Practice Productions, China

Natacha Devillers and Wendy Kuan, with their Shanghai-based companies Les Petites Lumieres and Practice Productions, are established co-producers and service producers for Western films shooting in China. Their recent productions have been selected for major festivals, incuding Cannes, Pusan and Rotterdam.

Between them, Natacha and Wendy’s credits to date include: David Verbeek’s Shanghai Trance, co-produced with Holland’s Motel Films, in Competition at the Rotterdam Film Festival; Diao Yinan’s Night Train, Official Selection in Un Certain Regard at Cannes; Nan Achnas’ The Photograph, Official Selection at the Pusan Film Festival; Guka Omarova’s SchizO, Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, Best Actor Award winner at the Tokyo Film Festival, Best Director winner at the Copenhagen IFF; Han Jie’s Walking on the Wild Side, Winner of the VPRO Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival; Conrad Clark’s Soul Carriage, Best New Director at San Sebastian Film Festival, Karama Saleh’s Henna’s Dream, Zero Lin’s 3D animated feature Bonda (currently in production).