Skip to main content

EYEWEAR NOVEL OPTIONED FOR FILM


MS SUMIA SUKKAR

For Immediate Release


B7 Media secures film and television rights


to Sumia Sukkar’s acclaimed novel of Syrian conflict


 
– The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War follows B7 Media’s successful BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of a modern literary masterpiece –

 
London, 6 July 2015:  The film and television rights to The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War, the debut novel by Sumia Sukkar set during the outbreak of the Syrian conflict, have been acquired by B7 Media.
 

Independent production and distribution company B7 Media has announced it has acquired an option to develop a motion picture or television serial based on Sumia Sukkar’s acclaimed debut novel of the Syrian conflict, The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War.
 
Following B7’s critically acclaimed radio dramatisation of the novel for BBC Radio 4 in 2014, featuring Farshid Rokey, this new film adaptation will look to explore this powerful and intimate drama in a widescreen setting. Simon Moorhead (Mirrormask, Luna) and Andrew Mark Sewell (Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Exit Thread) will produce.

Published by Eyewear, London, the novel was an immediate critical success on publication. The story gained a whole new audience when B7 Media adapted it into a successful Saturday Drama for BBC Radio 4, directed by Fiona McAlpine, produced by Andrew Mark Sewell and Patrick Chapman and dramatised for radio by Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle. Farshid Rokey, Noof Ousellam and Jalleh Alizadeh led an outstanding young cast in this moving realisation of a heartrending story.
 

About The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War

 
Adam is a 14-year-old boy with Asperger Syndrome, who attempts to understand the Syrian conflict and its effect on his life and family by painting his feelings.  Yasmine, his devoted older sister, has to cope with her own traumas when government soldiers abduct and torture her. His older brothers face the dilemma – on whether or not to take sides and the consequences of their eventual choices have repercussions for the entire family. 



The Boy From Aleppo Who Painted The War is the powerful and deeply moving debut novel from Sumia Sukkar.  It chronicles the intimate sufferings of a family in the midst of civil war – with uncommon compassion, wit and imaginative force.  Told mainly from Adam’s perspective, this gripping story achieves the timeless dignity of a true report from an unpredictable and frightening place. How do we preserve love and beauty in brutal times? What does a major conflict do to the fabric of a family? How does one challenged young man survive when his world falls apart?
Producer, Andrew Mark Sewell says of the project: “The immediacy and impact of this drama bear witness to the horror of war, and the triumph of the human spirit over almost unbearable adversity. When our development producer, Patrick Chapman, first brought Sumia’s novel to my attention, I was struck by the intimate and powerful voice Sumia brought to the story.”


Written when she was a mere 21-years-old, Sumia Sukkar is the youngest female British Muslim to have had a novel published in the UK: “Writing my timely novel was a way for me to express my grief towards the tragedies of what's happening in my country. Readers will find it interesting to experience the traumatising events of war through the eyes of an innocent young autistic boy who has lived his whole life completely dependant on his family and then having to be separated from them.  It contains a blend of political events, emotional drive and Arabian tradition.”

 

About B7 Media

 
B7 Media is an independent production company that has an extensive track record in film, television, radio and theatre. Notable credits include Haunted for UKTV (shortlisted for the Montreux e-Rose); the acclaimed motion picture Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont starring Joan Plowright, Anna Massey and Rupert Friend; and Tim Arnold’s Sonnet 155, staged at the Almeida Theatre featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, Hattie Morahan, Paul McGann, Lisa Dillon and Richard Briers (in his last stage appearance).

Recently completed projects include two independent features by Canadian director Paul Kimball, The Cuckoo in the Clock, featuring Jacob James; and Roundabout, featuring Annie Briggs. Both films premiered at last year’s Atlantic Film Festival. B7’s latest collaboration with Kimball, Exit Thread, is currently shooting in Nova Scotia.

In the realm of radio drama its reputation for creating dramatic, widescreen audio worlds that sound lived-in, real and cinematic, was demonstrated to epic effect in its recent BBC Radio 4 adaptations of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (a Silver award winner for Best Drama Special in the prestigious 2015 New York Festivals International Radio Program Awards); and Sumia Sukkar’s The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War. B7 is also known for the epic audio reboot of cult TV classic Blake’s 7, featuring Derek Riddell, Colin Salmon and Daniela Nardini (for BBC Radio 4 Extra).

Press Contact


Patrick Chapman | Development Executive

B7 Productions Ltd | Station Court | High Road | Cookham | Berkshire | SL6 9JF

e: patrick@b7media.com | w: www.b7media.com | Twitter: @B7Media
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....
3 comments
Read more

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".
1 comment
Read more

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise...
1 comment
Read more