London and New York-based sales firm Together Films has acquired world rights to Paul Sng’s Tish, which opens Sheffield DocFest tonight (June 14).
A UK-Ireland deal with distributor Modern Films has already been signed.
The film tells the story of artist Tish Murtha, a photographer who captured images of working-class communities, and follows Tish’s daughter Ella, in her drive to preserve her mother’s legacy.
Sng’s previous films include Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché (also released in the UK and Ireland by Modern) and Dispossession.
Tish marks the first documentary on the Together Films sales slate, which also includes Naqqash Khalid’s In Camera, which will premiere at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
The film is produced by Jen Corcoran through her female-led, north east-based production company Freya Films in association with John Archer at Hopscotch Films and Sng’s Velvet Joy Productions. The voice of Tish is played by Maxine Peake. Tish was made with the support of the BFI Doc Society Fund and Screen Scotland in association with BBC England and BBC Arts.
Sng and Corcoran said: “[Together Films and Modern Films] are champions of inclusive cinema and we’re excited to partner with both on a film that celebrates the power and talent of a brilliant, yet overlooked, working class female photographer, Tish Murtha.”
Together Films’ Sarah Mosses added: “Tish’s work captured the lives of those often ignored by prominent cultural spaces, and we hope her images will now be seen by a broader, global, audience.”
Modern Films’ Eve Gabereau said: “Following on from our work on Poly Styrene and more recently on Blue Bag Life, there is such vitality and audience engagement in mother-daughter relationships through a first person lens. Tish has so much to give in this area and also about art, history, visuality, activism, identity - and sadness and survival.”
No comments yet