Cannes: Chinese-backed UK producer unveils  ‘GiantLand'         

Young British outfit, BB88 is one of the early beneficiaries of a maturing and ongoing diversification of the Chinese film industry.

That’s because, while the big money has been flowing, somewhat unevenly, between China and Hollywood, smart money is looking at building China’s film relations with Europe, Variety.com reports.

BB88 – when pronounced in a Chinese fashion it means someone who is very noisy – is pulling the wraps off its first Chinese-backed production slate in time for Cannes.

Now in post-production, “GiantLand” is a poignant drama about a boy’s identification of a strange, bearded man as his father. It is written and directed by first time feature film maker Yousaf Ali Khan, who has a pair of BAFTA nominations for earlier work. It stars Goran Bogdan and Hayley Squires as adult protagonists and Mitchell Lawrence Norman as the boy, Ryan.

 “We want to make commercially viable independent films that are also artistically honest,” says co-founder Craig Conway. “We believe that we can do both.” By way of example, he points to the company’s first film, “Broken,” a 2016 very low budget drama, with a horror twist, about a woman whose past intrudes on her caring for a handicapped patient. And it was on the set of “Broken” that Conway was introduced to “GiantLand.”

The company was carefully structured from the outset. It matches Conway’s 25-year track record as a writer, director, producer and actor, with the business management skills of Kirsty Bell, a former tax adviser turned film producer and financier. She previously founded Goldfinch Entertainment in 2013 and has since raised some $90 million (GBP70 million) for investment in 130 movie projects. Goldfinch is a backer of BB88.

In April last year, the China-UK Film Fund, which is backed by Zhongze Culture Investment and Varcale Capital Management, announced that it was to back four UK film companies. (Duncan Heath’s Independent Talent Group was one of the others.) Zhongze and the fund committed to co-financing a slate of three films from BB88.