February 2019

You are invited to Be More Birmingham, an unmissable event celebrating the city region’s creativity. Birmingham is at the bull’s eye of the creative sector,spanning film & TV, tech & digital and games. Join Creative England in a celebration of creative revolution, as we shine a light on this vibrant, youthful and diverse city region. Be More Birmingham will bring together SMEs, policy makers, broadcasters and talent within the creative industries for a day filled with high-profile keynotes and discussions.

Be More Birmingham will be hosted by BBC1’s Midlands Today presenter Elizabeth Glinka, with keynotes from the mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street. There will also be an In Conversation with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight. Overall, Be More Birmingham will celebrate Birmingham’s creative past whilst looking ahead to its exciting future.

Speakers for this event include:

Andy Street – Mayor of the West Midlands

Steven Knight – Writer and Director

Caroline Norbury MBE – CEO Creative England

Jenny Tooth OBE – CEO UK Business Angela Association

Joe Godwin – Director BBC Midlands and BBC Academy

Faye Pressly – Chief Operating Officer – Vanti

Oliver Clarke – Studio Director Lockwood Leamington

Mehjabeen Patrick – Chief Finance Officer Creative England

Michael Gubbins – Senior Project Manager

Host: Elizabeth Glinka – BBC 1 Presenter, Midlands Today

Alison Grade, CEO Producers’ Forum

Be More Birmingham will be held at The Bond Company, Digbeth on Wed, 20 March 2019, 13:00 – 19:00 GMT.

This is a free event. To register, click here.

For more industry-related news, visit our news page.

Ben Hardy, who recently portrayed Queen drummer Roger Taylor in box office hit Bohemian Rhapsody, has joined the cast of Adam Randall’s UK film Recovery. The thriller is scheduled for filming in West Midlands. Hardy will star alongside Tim Roth in the three-hander, with further casting now underway.

Production is set to begin in March in the UK’s West Midlands and then Belgium. Roy Boulter and Sol Papadopoulos of Liverpool-based Hurricane Films are producing. Executive producers are Stephen Kelliher of Bankside Films, Tim Roth and Bastien Sirodot of UMedia. Bankside Films is launching sales on the project at this week’s European Film Market in Berlin.

Randall, whose credits include iBoy and the upcoming I See You with Helen Hunt, is directing Recoveryfrom a screenplay by A Prayer Before Dawn writer Nick Saltrese. The story follows a tow-truck driver and his two passengers, one of whom is a terrorist responsible for a campaign of fear. Ben Hardy was a Screen Star of Tomorrow in 2015. His credits also include X-Men: Apocalypse and Mary Shelley. Recovery was developed with Creative England and is a UK-Belgium co-production with UMedia.

Source: ScreenDaily

For more industry news, visit our news page.