Mirror preps Eileen Atkins’ Virginia Woolf biopic

London-based production outfit Mirror Productions is readying a slate which includes one of the first features to be backed by Goldfinch Pictures and a Virginia Woolf biopic written by Eileen Atkins.

Mirror is spearheaded by former Technicolour executive Simon Baxter and producer Evangelo Kioussis.

The company is in development on actress and screenwriter Eileen Atkins’ long-gestating feature adaptation of her play Virginia and Vita, about the turbulent love affair between literary trailblazer Virginia Woolf and the author Vita Sackville West.

“Eileen has found a good ally in my partner Evangelo,” Baxter told Screen. “They have been working on the script, which is now out with directors of note, one of whom will be approved by Eileen.”

“We’ve had quite a bit of verbal interest in the script,” he continued. “Once we have our director on board I’m hopeful we can get moving on it later next year.”

BAFTA-winning actress Atkins has regularly returned to the life and career of writer Woolf in theatre, TV and film, including writing the script for 1997 feature Mrs Dalloway, starring Vanessa Redgrave, and acting in Stephen Daldry’s 2002 drama The Hours.

The first project on the Mirror slate is Petroleum Spirit, a surreal black comedy from commercials director Rob Sanders.

Due to shoot in spring next year, the £750,000-budgeted film is set to be one of the first backed by Nyman Libson Paul’s new EIS venture Goldfinch Pictures Ltd.

The 1980s-set film charts the odyssey of a young man who grows up in a remote petrol station to find his father who tries to recruit him to the criminal underworld.

Additional support on the film is set to come from Film Agency for Wales, a second EIS scheme, the UK tax credit and private equity. The production will begin attaching cast in January.

Also on the feature slate is WWII drama Comet Line and an adaptation of Honore de Balzac’s novel The Wild Ass’s Skin.

Mirror is also working on TV series Pointman, a spy-thriller series created by Kioussis and Ben Aaronovitch, who wrote a number of Doctor Who episodes in the 1980s.

Kioussis was a story editor on 2010 horror The Corridor. City broker Robert Bell is an executive producer at the London-based company.