Creative England has made financing commitments to two new films based in the West Midlands. The productions are Wrapt Films” Here & Now and Vicarious Dreams” Here Comes The Summer. The productions have been awarded funding from the Advantage Media Production Fund (AMPF), which was set up in 2007 by Screen West Midlands and is now managed by Creative England.

The AMPF recently supported the BBC crime drama Line of Duty and Penny Woolcock”s feature documentary about Birmingham gang warfare, One Mile Away, which won the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature at the 2012 Edinburgh Film Festival.

Here & Now is a lyrical drama set in Herefordshire, which follows a romantic relationship between an inner-city girl and a local boy. The film is produced and directed by Lisle Turner and Martina Klich. Co-produced with Revolution Films, the feature recently completed filming. Here Comes The Summer tells the story of 2 Tone fan Paul, whose dream of becoming a music journalist is jeopardised when an act of revenge escalates into a night of violence. Set in Coventry in the 1980s, the film is produced by Birmingham-based Vicarious Dreams, with producers Carol Harding, Alan McKenna and Andrea Cornwell. The film is directed by Ron Scalpello (Offender) and is expected to start filming early 2013.

Commenting on the awards, Christopher Moll, Head of Talent at Creative England, said: “The AMPF remains one of the few active English regional film funds in challenging times and we”re delighted to be supporting two distinctive features from new and upcoming talent. With Line of Duty pulling in a record numbers of viewers for its slot, Penny Woolcock”s success in Edinburgh and Stephen Poliakoff”s Dancing on the Edge still to come in 2013, Creative England continues to back outstanding content through this Fund.”

Creative England says that it continues to seek expressions of interest to the Fund for feature films of all genres, to be produced or co-produced by companies based in the West Midlands.

Full information on the films mentioned can be found on Production Intelligence, the online database of advance productions from The Knowledge: