Lennon childhood film gets grant

Nowhere Boy is based on a book by Lennon's sister Julia Baird

A film about John Lennon's early life is among seven projects to be given lottery-funded development grants by the UK Film Council.

Nowhere Boy, based on a book by his half-sister, is being developed by Matt Greenhalgh who wrote Control, a biopic of Joy Division's Ian Curtis.

It will get £35,500 of £322,000 being awarded to established film-makers.

The Edge of Love director John Maybury's latest film, about US photographer Lee Miller, gets £116,500.

Without this story, we would never have heard The Beatles - can you imagine that? Matt Greenhalgh

Greenhalgh said Julia Baird's book Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon had taken him "into a world that illuminated so much about this legendary genius".

"I could see the drama and film immediately - the women in his life, the men who weren't, the birth of rock and roll, all imposing on a brilliantly complicated adolescent mind."

He added: "Without this story, we would never have heard The Beatles - can you imagine that?"

BBC partnership

Tamara Drewe, a film adaptation of the Posy Simmonds novel about a woman who brings chaos to a countryside writer's retreat, will receive £48,375.

That project and Half of a Yellow Sun, which will receive £39,375, are both being funded in partnership with BBC Films.

Playwright Biyi Bandele will adapt Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Orange Prize-winning novel.

Without new ideas and the money, time and space to develop them and take risks you can't create a healthy film culture Tanya Seghatchian UK Film Council

Hyde Park on Hudson, an account of a 1939 visit to the US by King George VI being developed by Notting Hill director Roger Michell, will get £47,540.

Development fund head Tanya Seghatchian said all the film-makers had already "made their mark" in the UK.

"For UK film-makers, development support can be critical at this early stage and, without new ideas and the money, time and space to develop them and take risks, you can't create a healthy film culture," she added.

"Our objective is to make the development fund a home for talent and, by extension, the UK a place where the most talented film-makers want to come and make films."

Promised Land, which will receive £25,000, is the new project of The Road to Guantanamo director Michael Winterbottom.

Documentary The Pervert's Guide to Ideology is Sophie Fiennes and Slavoj Zizek's follow-up to their guide to film-making - The Pervert's Guide to Cinema.

Their project has been awarded £10,000.