Production is underway in Newcastle, UK on Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day, adapted for the screen by Justine Waddell (Janine Jensen Falling for Stradivari, Force of Nature Natalia) and directed by BAFTA nominee Tina Gharavi (I Am Nasrine, Queen Cleopatra).
Jack Whitehall (Jungle Cruise, Decline & Fall, Good Omens), Jennifer Saunders (Death on the Nile, Sumotherhood, Allelujia), and Sally Phillips (Love at First Sight, Bridget Jones Diary) have joined the ensemble cast. Other cast members include Misia Butler (Kaos), Alex Macqueen (Downton Abbey), Simon Phillips (The Witcher) and Frances Barber (Goal!).
Haley Bennett (Widow Cliquot, Cyrano, Girl on a Train) will play the lead, as previously announced, with BAFTA-winner Timothy Spall (The Sixth Commandment, The King’s Speech, Harry Potter franchise), British singerLily Allen (How to Build a Girl) and German superstar Elyas M’Barek (Fack ju Göhte, This Crazy Heart, The Collini Case).
Set in an era when glass ceilings were made of concrete, Bennett will play Katharine Hilbery — one woman who insisted on reaching for the stars. Based on what has been called Woolf’s funniest novel, Night and Day is described as an “unromantic comedy” about a passionate astronomer who does everything she can to avoid romantic love and marriage. Contemporary in tone, the story of Katharine’s bold challenge to the Edwardian patriarchy is set against the backdrop of the suffragette movement and advances in science and technology, at the turn of the 20th century.
Woolf is considered one of the most important 20th century modernist authors. Her novels have been translated into over 50 languages. Night and Day, one of her early novels, examines the relationships between love, marriage, happiness and success.
The picture is produced by Justine Waddell (Janine Jensen Falling for Stradivari, Force of Nature Natalia), Christopher Figg (Golda, Silk Road, Mandy), Meg Thomson (Freud’s Last Session, Siren, Dot The I), Stephen Julius, Philipp Steffens (God You’re Such A Prick, Racing Hearts), Julie Link (Misfit) and Marc Grewe (The Queen’s Gambit, Babylon Berlin). Annegret Weitkämper–Krug, Egor Noskov, Margarethe Baillou, Lara Ta, Nadya Gorshkova and Konstantin Korenchuk will Executive Produce. Sebastian Leutner will Co-Produce.
WestEnd is handling international sales, and US Domestic will be co-repped by WestEnd and WME Independent. The film is financed by Sandylands Developments Ltd., M.Y.R.A. Entertainment, Tsavorite Films, Ciara Filmproduction, and Star Mountain Pictures with funding support by North East Screen Industries Partnership delivered by North East Screen, the Film-und Medienstiftung NRW, the MFG Baden-Württemberg, German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) and development financing from the BFI (awarding National Lottery Funding). The film is a UK-German co-production, between Asterisk Films, Piccadilly Pictures, and GLISK a Federation Studios company. Co-production partners are Gretchenfilm, Senator Film, and German Film Partners, with filming taking place in Newcastle and in the areas around Cologne. WildBunch will distribute the film in GAS.
