Herefordshire media charity and production company Rural Media have produced six short films based on the shortlisted books for this years’ Booker Prize ceremony. Partnering with The Booker Prize and the BBC, Rural Media produced a film for each of the shortlisted books up for the 2021 award

The films have been created by three gifted new directors; Yero Timi-Biu, Liam Young and Christine Ubochi, who are graduates of New Creatives, a national scheme co-produced by Rural Media and funded by Arts Council England and BBC Arts to highlight the best of emerging film and TV talent. 

The actors in the films are David Jonsson (Industry, Deep State, Endeavour), Elmi Rashid Elmi (The Swimmers, Dune, Barbershop Chronicles), Fiona Button (The Split, Out of her Mind), Luke Norris (Poldark, Our World War, Been So Long), Paul G Raymond (Black Mirror, Buffering, Bridgerton, Kiri) and Ria Zmitrowicz (On the Edge, Three Girls and BAFTA Breakthrough Brits 2018).  

The films will be part of the Booker Prize ceremony, which will be held at the BBC Radio Theatre on November 3rd at 7:15pm GMT and will be broadcast live on Front Row, BBC iPlayer and the BBC News Channel simultaneously.

The films are also available to watch on The Booker Prizes’ Youtube Channel here: 
https://www.youtube.com/c/thebookerprizes 

Rural Media’s Creative Director and Deputy CEO, Grant Black, said;

“We’re thrilled to have been commissioned by The Booker Prize and BBC Arts to produce this years shortlist films and to mentor three incredibly gifted directors in Yero, Liam and Christine. New Creatives gave us the opportunity to find and support emerging new talent across the nation and we couldn’t be prouder seeing their skills celebrated on a national scale across the BBC thanks to BBC Arts and The Booker Prize. Congrats to the Directors and best of luck to the shortlisted writers!”

Liam Young, Director of Bewilderment and No-one Is Talking About This said: 

“Being able to be part of this project has been fantastic. It was really fun to put my own spin on an extract from both books and also great to work with two unbelievably talented actors.”