Fresh from the success of his low-budget horror hit My Little Eye, director Marc Evans is returning to the psychological chiller genre with Trauma.

The project marks the first from Ministry of Fear, the horror label set up by former Edinburgh International Film Festival chief Lizzie Francke at UK-Irish production outfit Little Bird. Ex-FilmFour International sales chief Sue Bruce-Smith is in Mifed raising finance on the buzz title.

Currently doing the financing rounds as a script, the project tells the story of a thirtysomething artist haunted by apparitions of his wife after she dies in a car accident. The script is by newcomer Richard Smith.

At this year's Edinburgh festival, Marc Evans also revealed plans to collaborate with producer Jon Finn (Billy Elliot) on what he described as "musical verite" - a teen movie set in a Swansea school in 1976, the hottest summer on the record for the UK. Laurence Coriat (Wonderland, Me Without You) is currently working on that particular screenplay, which will be produced by Working Title Films with an eye to starting production in summer 2003.