Faebian Averies’ TV script The Rubber Faced Men has topped this year’s Brit List of 13 unproduced screenplays from up-and-coming UK talent. The
Faebian Averies’ TV script The Rubber Faced Men has topped this year’s Brit List of 13 unproduced screenplays from up-and-coming UK talent.
The Rubber Faced Men is a TV crime script, developed with NBC Universal. In 1983 West Wales, one man and his teenage stepson go about taking down an international drug smuggling ring after uncovering a secret bunker on the beach. Averies was the BBC Wales writer in residence and the National Theatre Wales writer in residence for 2020. Her script received 28 recommendations.
All top three places this year are held by TV scripts. In second place with 24 recommendations is Chika by Jenny Takahashi Stark, a coming-of-age comedy drama about a working-class Oxbridge student who deals drugs to fund her dad’s desperately needed heart surgery, with Fable Pictures attached to produce. Third place, with 22 recommendations, is Conflicts by Christina Sweeney-Baird, a crime drama series about a criminal barrister assigned to the defence team of the man she thinks killed her sister, set up at Euston Films.
Top performing feature is Behave Yourselves with 21 recommendations, a comedy by Richard Tahmasebi and Christopher Vernon, developed with Big Talk. A company ski trip for a Brooklyn-based digital marketing firm goes off the rails after a member of staff dies in mysterious circumstances.
Catch A Butcher by Cassiah Joski-Jethi has 12 recommendations. The feature, with Tedium Entertainment, is a psychological horror set in 19th century India. An English nurse arrives at an isolated maternity hospital to continue her father’s legacy of supposedly caring for the mixed-race babies born from British soldiers and Indian women. Joski-Jethi was also part of this year’s BFI Network@LFF cohort.
The Brit List was established in 2007 by Alexandra Arlango and compiles recommendations from UK production companies, talent agencies, sales companies, financiers, distributors and broadcasters. A minimum of 10 recommendations was needed this year for inclusion. It is supported by Audible and the Film Distributors’ Association.
“This year 40% of The Brit List scripts are feature films, more than any other years since the list became a platform for both TV and Film. This continues a trend we saw beginning last year, and I’m delighted that feature scripts seem to be flourishing,” said Arlango.
Previous Brit List entrants include Chris Andrews’ Bifa-nominated Toronto and BFI London FIlm Festival premiere Bring Them Down, which appeared on the 2018 Brit List as Shepherd.
The 2024 Brit List
Synopses provided by The Brit List
28 recommendations
The Rubber Faced Men scr. Faebian Averies
Prod: NBC Universal
Form: TV
Genre: Crime
Summary: West Wales, 1983. One man and his teenage stepson go about taking down an international drug smuggling ring after uncovering a secret bunker on the beach.
24 recommendations
Chika scr. Jenny Takahashi Stark
Prod: Fable Pictures
Form: TV
Genre: Comedy drama
Summary: Chika is a coming-of-age comedy drama about a working-class Oxbridge student who deals drugs to fund her dad’s desperately needed heart surgery, and her adventures with her best friend as she discovers herself in an elitist, patriarchal establishment.
22 recommendations
Conflicts scr. Christina Sweeney-Baird
Prod: Euston Films
Form: TV
Genre: Crime drama
Summary: Millie, a criminal barrister, is assigned to the defence team of the man she thinks killed her sister, twelve years before. He’s killed again: but is he guilty? And if she ensures he’s convicted for this crime, will another killer go free?
21 recommendations
Behave Yourselves scrs. Richard Tahmasebi, Christopher Vernon
Prod: Big Talk
Form: Feature
Genre: Comedy
Summary: Craig is desperate to impress Dallas, his charismatic work-dad at a Brooklyn-based digital marketing / probably-something-to-do-with AI company. The lengths he is willing to go to are tested when their company ski-trip to a run-down New England resort goes off the rails after a member of the IT department dies in mysterious circumstances on the first night.
12 recommendations
Catch A Butcher scr. Cassiah Joski-Jethi
Prod: Tedium Entertainment
Form: Feature
Genre: Psychological horror
Summary: In 19th Century India, a naive English nurse arrives at an isolated maternity hospital on a quest to continue her father’s legacy of “caring for” the mixed-race babies born from British soldiers and Indian women. But soon, the nurse discovers a sinister force lurking inside not just the hospital, but also herself…
Night Movers scr. Jakob Lancaster
Prod: Available
Form: TV
Genre: Thriller
Summary: Night Movers is a darkly comic, crime thriller centred around two siblings who run an undercover ‘night movers’ business. It’s a 6 x 45’ returning series that draws influence from shows like Guilt and Bad Sisters; as well as from classic film noirs like Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity.
Counting Cards With My Father scr. Lydia Rui Huang
Prod: Arenamedia
Form: Feature
Genre: Drama
Summary: Sick of bouncing around from home to home, troubled teen Lisa seeks out their estranged poker-playing father, Sammy. After hunting him down at the casino, Lisa manages to convince a reluctant Sammy to become a team for the upcoming tournament. However, Lisa must face whether or not gambling is really in their blood when they find themselves going all in.
11 recommendations
Heart Of The Earth scr. Jon Champion
Prod: Available
Form: TV
Genre: Drama
Summary: A grief-stricken college freshman is presented with an opportunity to bring his brother back from the dead but must find someone else to take his place in the afterlife.
The Grip scr. Ross Dunsmore
Prods: New Regency, Morenike Williams
Form: TV
Summary: A twisty, youthful noir thriller set in Glasgow, The Grip is a contemporary tale played out in a heightened world of razor acute dialogue and grey morality. All the noir elements are here, obsession, desire, fate, all the classic characters, visual keys and thematic threads, but reimagined, remade to explore one central question – will the youth of today cave in to conformity, or turn the world on its head?
Troops scr. Rory Gibson
Prod: Silverprint Pictures
Form: TV
Genre: Dark comedy/thriller
Summary: Rankin, a jewel thief on the lam from a vengeful employer, is drawn into running a dysfunctional rural scout troop. He propels the troop to recent heights but in sticking his head above the parapet his past catches up with him. Only now he has much more to save than himself.
10 recommendations
Hungry Joe scrs. Paul Holbrook, Sam Dawe
Prod. Studio Pow
Form: Feature
Genre: Thriller/horror
Summary: An penniless single mother struggles to hold on to her sanity as she’s forced into extreme measures to satisfy her son’s insatiable, inhuman appetite.
Lovesong scr. Sarah Morgan
Prod: The Imaginarium
Form: Feature
Genre: Folk horror
Summary: Grieving for the loss of his husband, an elderly goth is struck by an overwhelming fear of death – til he meets a mysterious hag living in the woods, and an unlikely friendship blossoms with the spring. A love story about horror, and a horror story about love.
Lucy Negro scr. Azuka Oforka
Prod: Available
Form: TV
Genre: Historical drama
Summary: An ill-fated love story set in turbulent Elizabethan England, inspired by the controversial theory pertaining to Shakespeare’s Dark Lady of the Sonnets.
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