Film and Music Entertainment is one of the UK’s most successful and prolific independent production companies. It was formed by Mike Downey and Sam Taylor in January 2000 with the aim of financing and producing feature films. Stephen Daldry (three-time Oscar-nominated, director of Billy Elliott, The Hours and The Reader) acts as Chairman of the Board and as executive producer.
 
With over 30 films under its belt, including a winner of the Golden Lion in Venice, an Academy Award Nominee and multiple official entries in the Sundance, Berlin, Montreal, Toronto, San Sebastian and Locarno film festivals, the Film and Music Entertainment brand has over the last decade become synonymous with the production of quality feature films.
 
The first feature film produced was Milcho Manchevski's Oscar nominated Before the Rain which won the Golden Lion in Venice. Following this success, F&ME went on to produce Benjamin Ross' feature debut The Young Poisoner's Handbook along with Sweet Angel Mine and Christos Georgiou’s Under the Stars.
 
This was then followed by a range of productions which include Michael Bassett's Deathwatch starring Jamie Bell, Venice competition entry Sjaj u Ocima (Loving Glances), Falcons and Niceland by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson.  Peter Timm's My Brother is a Dog, Hillmar Oddson's Cold Light, and Strings by Anders Ronnow Klarlund.
 
In 2005 Guy X  by Saul Metzstein was completed starring Jason Biggs, as was Shadow of the Sword  by Swiss director Simon Aeby, the gay Icelandic football comedy Eleven Men Out  by Robert Douglas, Murk by Denmark's Jannick Johansen and the UK/Polish/German adaptation of the Günter Grass novel Unkenrufe (Call of the Toad) directed by Robert Glinski.
Son of Man, the follow up to the highly successful U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha directed by Mark Dornford-May screened in competition in Sundance in 2006, and won best film at the San Francisco Pan African International Film festival, and Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival.
 
Also in 2006 was The Border Post by Rajko Grlic and The Mystery of the Wolf - a family film shot in Lapland.  Followed in 2007 by Quest for a Heart, the company’s first animation film with songs by Billy Elliot’s Lee Hall, Astropia and Mirror Maze directed by Guillermo Groizard. 2008 saw Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko’s Bathory, the truth behind the legend of the ‘bloody’ Countess Elizabeth Bathory which was produced in association with Jakubisko and Eurofilm of Budapest.
 
In 2009, F&ME completed the critically acclaimed debut feature by Dominic Murphy, White Lightnin’, which premiered in Sundance and screened in Panorama at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival. Made with the UK Film Council White Lightnin’ tells the captivating tale of cult figure Jesco White, the last of the great Appalachian mountain dancers. The film went on to win Le Hitchcock d’Or, (Grand Jury Prize) at the 2009 Dinard British Film Festival, the Grand Prize in Mumbai Film Festival and best International Film and the Pune Film Festival.
Other recent projects include Donkey (directed by Antonio Nuic) and Julius Kemp’s Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre - a dark and epic tale of an innocent expedition gone horribly wrong. Turtle: The Incredible Journey, directed by Emmy award-winner, Nick Stringer, which tells the extraordinary story of the giant loggerhead turtle in F&ME’s first feature documentary. The film won the main prize in Fort Lauderdale. F&ME swept the board at the 2008 Sarajevo Film Festival winning all major awards with Buick Riviera - a gripping tale of a meeting between two men from ex Yugoslavia.
 
2011 saw the completion of Gareth Maxwell Roberts’ 3D Film Noir The Mortician and Tim Pritchard’s feature documentary Street Kids United.  At present, F&ME are developing Cassy and Jude and A Gift From The Culture by Iain M. Banks with Dominic Murphy, as well as Julien Temple’s next project - the documentary feature Children of the Revolution about the musical and political history of Rio. F&ME are currently in pre-production for Epic written by Pawel Pawlikowski and Ben Hopkins, set to shoot in autumn of 2012.
 
Represented by some of the best names in international and domestic distribution, our titles have been released in all major markets in the world, and represent a valuable production output encompassing a wide variety of, genres, nationalities and age groups. We continue our passion for eclectic, challenging and ground breaking subject matter of appeal to the global film market and look forward to making more.