The UK Film Council has announced the first awards from its Development Fund since Tanya Seghatchian took over as head of the Fund on April 1.

The UKFC has backed six films with $930,000 - with more than half of the funding, or $509,700 - going to Bruce Robinson to develop a film adaptation of his comic novel The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman. The Withnail & I director will tell the story of a 13-year-old boy who grows up in a family of eccentrics in post-war Broadstairs.

The UKFC is backing Don Juan in Soho with $305,800 (£150,000). Patrick Marber will adapt his play of the same name, with Film4 also on board. The story is a modern version of Moliere's racy Don Juan. Marber will also produce with Robert Fox.

The other awards are:

$47,954 (£23,500) to Blackwaterside, a debut feature collaboration between Scottish playwrite David Greig, director Marisa Zanotti and producer Angela Murray. The team worked on short film At The End Of The Sentence. The fieature is a dark comingof age fable about two teenage girls who get lost looking for a party.

$30,600 (£15,000) to That Face, which Polly Stenham will adapt from her play about a privileged mother who loses her grip on reality.

$20,369 (£9,982) to Mad About The Boy, a comedy written and to be directed by Terence Davies, working with his long-time producer Olivia Stewart.

$15,307 (£7,500) to Triangle, a psychological horror about survivors of a boat accident who seek refuse on an abandoned ocean liner. Christopher Smith, who previously made Creep and Severance, will write and direct and Jason Newmark will produce.

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