“We put ourselves under an enormous amount of pressure,” recalls producer Tracy O’Riordan of the UK’s Moonspun Films, of the speed with which Clio Barnard’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning was pulled together.
Barnard had a narrow window in her busy schedule around directing BBC series Sherwood. “We had seven months [from September 2024] to raise finance, do all the prep, location, cast and shoot.”
For financing for the Birmingham-set drama, about a group of friends navigating turning 30 against the backdrop of the UK’s housing crisis, O’Riordan reached out to previous partners BFI, BBC Film and Curzon. Charades also boarded, having worked closely with Curzon on Kneecap. The French sales agent and UK distributor provided a minimum guarantee to help get the project over the line, with further financing from US-based TPC to pull together a $5.1m (£3.8m) budget.
“There was a point where Clio, [writer] Enda [Walsh] and I had all made a pact that we would defer our fees, but the funders felt very strongly that we didn’t,” explains O’Riordan. “One of them came in with a little bit more money.”
The cast is led by Anthony Boyle, Lola Petticrew, Joe Cole, Jay Lycurgo and Daryl McCormack.
“The level of actors we were looking at, it could have taken years to come together to get those task schedules to align. We [O’Riordan, Barnard and casting director Shaheen Baig] went about it the other way – we said, ‘This is when we’re filming, who’s available?’”
It is Barnard and O’Riordan’s fifth time working together, including previous Cannes selections Ali & Ava and The Selfish Giant. Discussions are bubbling away about the pair’s next collaboration.
Beyond Cannes, Moonspun’s “contained and focused” slate also includes a project being developed with the BFI from writer Lavinia Greenlaw, which draws on her memoir The Importance Of Music To Girls, and a feature titled Coup D’Etat, written by Charlotte Hudson and Leila Hackett. “It’s a 1980s coming-of-age story about female ambition and friendship, and finding your voice,” says O’Riordan.
Interventions for independents
The experienced producer would like to see more support from the streamers for UK indie producers — “some support that acknowledges we are a foundational element of all the new talent coming up. We grow that talent, those cast and crew members, that they want.
“We have for years been so industrious, getting up every day, pushing a boulder up the hill and making these projects. Without us, without people getting up and going, ‘I’ll work for free for another year to see this through’, there are no projects.”
A further intervention O’Riordan would like to see to support independent producers is “a revenue corridor of the tax credit — that would be really meaningful to sustaining our businesses”.
She continues, “I have to give a shout out to the BBC Small Indie grant – it’s a nominal sum of money but my god it came at the right time for me [in 2024]. It allowed me to make this film.
“One other important thing I think is a cultural shift that recognises how important arts funding is in general. It’s never going to solve every problem that the industry has, but it will give at least give a fighting chance for people who are not personally wealthy or privileged to work in this industry and have their voices heard.”
O’Riordan’s credits include TV series Alice & Jack. She has one TV project on her slate she is shopping around, but TV, she says, is in a near impossible space to work in at the moment.
“When I was sending a TV project around, I was told by a streamer that my company was too small [O’Riordan works with editor and consultant Lionel Johnson] and I didn’t have enough backroom staff,” she says. “They told me to go away and find another company to co-produce with. One of those companies I reached out to, in this climate which is quite brutal, had too many backroom staff and had to fold. It’s really tricky.
“I would love to [do more TV], but it comes down to how much bandwidth I have, and are those doors opening? I think it’s really challenging for those companies whose bread and butter is TV. Of course I would love to have a returning series. My company would be sustainable if I had a returning series.”
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