Paul Greengrass, the award winning director of Bloody Sunday, is preparing to shoot a film about the last days of rock-legend Jimi Hendrix.

Called Cross Town Traffic, the film is to be scripted by Oliver Parker (It Was An Accident) and produced by Number 9 Films' Elizabeth Karlsen (Little Voice, The Crying Game). It is being backed by $150,000 (£94,000) of funding from the UK Film Council's Development Fund. According to The Film Council, the film will for the first time unravel the mystery of Jimi Hendrix's last days in London before his death in September 1970.

The Film Council's Development Fund, headed by Jenny Borgars, is also investing in a raft of other new film projects:

* Writer Paul Tamasy is adapting The Dark from Simon Maginn's novel about a grieving family who move to a remote village in Wales to recover from the loss of their child - a process hindered by the findings of bones, mutilated sheep and the dark, macabre history of their new house and surrounding area. John Fawcett (Ginger Snaps) is on board to direct and Jeremy Bolt (Resident Evil) is set to produce. The film is being co-financed by the fund and Constantin Film.

* Marc Evans, director of My Little Eye is teaming up with producer Jon Finn on Hunky Dory, co-funded with the Development Fund, Working Title and the Welsh screen agency Sgrîn Cymru Wales. Set in Swansea in the heat wave of '76, a music teacher attempts to get a gang of disinterested kids to take part in a futuristic rock music extravaganza.

* Writer/director John McKay (Crush) and producer Lee Thomas are working on on Ghosthunters, a teen action adventure set in the1920's. A parapsychologist discovers a way of talking to ghosts with the aid of a young female psychic - plunging them both into mortal danger.

* Meera Syal and Paul Raphael, the team behind Anita & Me are working on their new untitled project. Past and present collide, when east meets west in the small Irish village close to the place where Air India Flight 182 crashed into the sea in 1985.

* Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution, written by Peter Straughan and to be produced by Leslee Udwin (East Is East) and Peter Flannery is a feel good romantic comedy following one family's journey from 1965 East Midlands to 19 below freezing East Germany and back again.

* Francesca Barra and Selwyn Roberts producing for First Sight Films will remake the classic British horror film, The Witchfinder General. Set during the English Civil War, it is based on the true story of lawyer turned witch persecutor, Matthew Hopkins. Paul Webb will write the screenplay and Charles Sturridge will executive produce.

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