The Nottingham-based company celebrates its 25th anniversary this year

Wellington Films

Source: Glasgow Film Festival

Rachel Robey and Alastair Clark

Need to know: Alastair Clark and Rachel Robey joke they can now be called “veteran producers” in Screen, as their company celebrates its 25th anniversary – their local cinema, the Broadway in Nottingham, celebrated with a mini-retrospective of the company’s hits, including its acclaimed first feature London To Brighton by Paul Andrew Williams. Other notable credits include Netflix hit Calibre; Hope Dickson Leach’s Toronto 2016 selection The Levelling; and Muayad Alayan’s UK-Palestine co-production A House In Jerusalem.

A more recent success was Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight, a Cannes 2024 Directors’ Fortnight selection, which was shot in Mumbai. Clark says he is actively pursuing other Indian projects.

The pair continue to work on films with former Wellington employees Tom Wood (now at Western Edge Pictures) and Anna Griffin (who set up Griffin Pictures). Clark and Robey also produce shorts with new talent and are moving into high-end TV, with several projects in development. In addition to her work at Wellington, Robey also serves as head of producing at the NFTS.

Key personnel: Alastair Clark, Rachel Robey, producers.

Incoming: Spain-born, UK-based Maria Martinez Bayona’s second feature Feed Me is in development with Film4 (Wood is producing alongside Clark and Robey). Nicola Monaghan’s Nottingham-set crime novel series is in development as a high-end TV project entitled Legacy, which will soon go out to market seeking finance. Jon Wright’s The Door, a horror/black comedy feature, was recently pitched at Toronto’s International Finance Forum. Sandra Goldbacher is attached to direct Any Means Necessary, written by Kefi Chadwick and based on her own 2016 play about an activist wooed by an undercover cop (Griffin is also producing).

Alastair Clark says: “While we’re still director-driven, we are leaning more into genre and projects with a commercial twist.”

Rachel Robey says: “We have always prided ourselves on getting films made that other people couldn’t or wouldn’t. When that pays off, it’s exciting – it was brilliant to see Sister Midnight in Directors Fortnight, or Calibre landing on Netflix, the day it also won the Michael Powell Award [at Edinburgh International Film Festival].”

Contact: aclark@wellingtonfilms.co.uk 

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