LS Films is expanding its Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) world premiere short Little Warrior into a feature entitled Pequena Guerrera.
The story is about a young female boxer, Johana Gomez of Venezuela, who works remotely with Scottish boxing trainer Gary Young, to follow her dreams of Olympic glory. Screen Scotland is supporting the feature’s development.
Little Warrior, which was commissioned by Guardian Documentaries, premieres Saturday (August 20) at EIFF during a special event that will also include a discussion with director Paul Sng, producer Sarah Drummond, editor Manuela Lupini and executive producer Irvine Welsh.
Sng said this project fits in well with what LS wants to achieve in telling stories “about people who challenge the status quo or people who are not given the credit they deserve”.
Edinburgh local hero Welsh, best known as the author of Trainspotting, will work with LS Films again as the subject of Sng’s feature documentary I Am Irvine Welsh. That film, lead produced by Tigerlily’s Natasha Dack Ojumu, is now “two-thirds shot” Sng says, and could be finished in time for a launch at EIFF in August 2023.
“The gist is that the film is a present-day narrative showing Irvine as the busiest he’s every been – doing Trainspotting the musical, with three TV shows in development, a new novel coming out and starting a record label – it’s the period coming out of Covid lockdowns when he’s fantastically busy and the film follows that jeopardy of being too busy and looking at his creative process at work and play.” Screen Scotland also backs that film, which was pitched in June at Sheffield Doc/Fest’s MeetMarket. No sales company is attached yet.
Spy cops exposed
LS Films launched in March 2022 as an offshoot of the global production services company LS Productions, where Drummond serves as managing director.
Also on their growing slate is Sng’s feature documentary State Of Betrayal, lead produced by Sinead Kirwan (Dying To Divorce). The film follows Donna McLean, a woman fighting to uncover the truth about her relationship with a “spy cop” – an undercover officer that had inappropriate personal relationships without revealing his identity. McLean is the author of the book Small Town Girl about the scandal. Sng adds, “It’s a very personal story that looks at a very universal theme of falling in love with someone you shouldn’t have, but framed against much higher stakes: the threat to our democracy posed by the British state in the name of protecting society.”
Before joining forces with Drummond to launch LS Films, Sng directed films including Dispossession, Year Of The Dog and Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché (co-directed with Celeste Bell).
He is also finishing the film Tish, about a largely unknown female working-class photographer, to launch in 2023 and backed by BBC, BFI/Doc Society and Screen Scotland.
On the fiction side, LS Films plan to start with shorts and episodic work before moving onto fiction features. They already have one episodic comedy in early development.
Sng and Drummond say one major goal for LS Films is that every project they work on hires “a minimum of 50% of people from underrepresented backgrounds across race, class, gender and ability”.
“Even with the UK’s massive crew shortage at the moment, we just have to persevere to find the right people…It can be very challenging, especially in Scotland” said Sng, a British Chinese filmmaker now based in Edinburgh.
They source inclusive crews via their own networks and organisations including Screen Education Edinburgh.
Drummond, who won a Scottish Bafta for 2010 short Mum’s Birthday, added, “It feels like this is just the beginning (for LS Films). We want to get started with a great foundation and the right values, and also partnering with other amazing producers.”
No comments yet