Bankside seals Spike Island, Everyday deals

Bankside Films’ EFM deals include a new UK and Ireland deal for Mat Whitecross’ drama Spike Island, sales on Michael Winterbottom’s drama Everyday, including with IFC Films for US, and a string of deals on thriller The Philosophers.

Vertigo Films and Universal Pictures UK - the home entertainment division of Universal Pictures International Entertainment - will handle the theatrical and home entertainment releases, respectively, of Spike Island in the UK.

The coming-of-age drama, set against the Stone Roses’ legendary gig at Spike Island in May 1990, will get its premiere in Manchester this summer around the anniversary of the concert.

The deal was negotiated by Richard Thompson, head of local film acquisitions at Universal Pictures UK and Stephen Kelliher, head of sales and marketing at Bankside.

Elliott Tittensor, Nico Mirallegro, Jordan Murphy, Adam Long, Oliver Heald, Emilia Clarke and Lesley Manville star in the film, produced by Fiona Neilson and Esther Douglas of London’s Fiesta Productions.

Revolver had initially taken UK rights on the film but has recently ceased its distribution activities.

In other recent deals, Bankside has sold Michael Winterbottom drama Everyday, about the relationship between a man imprisoned for drug smuggling and his wife, to IFC Films for its label Sundance Selects in US as well as Benelux (Wild Bunch), Brazil (Efsera Cultural), South Korea (JinJin Pictures), Japan (Crest Films), Brazil (Telecine - pay TV), former Yugoslavia (FIVIA), Israel (Lev Cinemas) and Turkey (Mars Concept).

Thriller The Philosophers, in which a teacher challenges his class to choose which ten of them would reboot the human race in the event of an apocalypse, went to Benelux (Filmworks), CIS/Baltic States (All Media), German-speaking Europe (Ascot Elite), Hong Kong (UA Films), India (GMT Media), Japan (Nettai Museum) and the Middle East (Prime Pictures).