Ben Wheatley starts shoot for Sightseers

Kill List director Ben Wheatley starts shooting today for his third feature Sightseers, which shoots for four weeks in Derbyshire, Yorkshire and the Lake District.

Actors Alice Lowe and Steve Oram wrote the script, with additional material from Amy Jump. The story is about a couple on a countryside caravan trip that goes wrong.

StudioCanal will distribute in the UK and Protagonist Pictures handles international sales.

The film is a Big Talk Pictures production in association with Rook Films. Producers are Nira Park for Big Talk with Claire Jones and Andy Starke for Rook. Executive producers are Big Talk’s Matthew Justice, StudioCanal’s Danny Perkins and Jenny Borgars, and Film4’s Katherine Butler.

Big Talk developed the film with funding from Film4 and the BFI Film Fund. Financiers are StudioCanal, Film4 and the BFI Film Fund.

Katherine Butler, Film4 Senior Commissioning Executive, said: “We are thrilled to be going into production on the hilariously twisted Sightseers which brings together the prodigiously talented Ben Wheatley with the brilliant Big Talk Pictures and Ben’s dynamic Kill List collaborators at Rook Films. One of Film4’s big priorities is to build long-term relationships with filmmakers, so it’s fantastic to be teaming up once more with Big Talk – with whom we collaborated on Attack the Block - and Rook Films, on a project we’ve loved throughout development.”

Lizzie Francke, Senior Production Executive at BFI Film Fund, added: “Sightseers takes us on a bizarre journey through some of Britain’s most offbeat tourist destinations and in the hands of a director as talented as Ben Wheatley, it promises to be the most heady and hilarious of trips. Forget Psychogeography, this is psychotic geography. We’re delighted to once again be working with Ben and the fantastic production teams at Big Talk and Rook Films and we wish them all the best for the shoot.”