JOHN LENNON - SEVEN NEW FILM PROJECTS GIVEN LOTTERY GRANTS

Seven new British films are to be given lottery-funded development grants, the UK Film Council has announced.

The films include a project about US photographer Lee Miller, directed by John Maybury, which is to receive £116,500.

Nowhere Boy, a film based on a book about John Lennon's early life is being developed by Control writer Matt Greenhalgh and is to receive £35,000.

The other projects include Michael Winterbottom's next offering, Promised Land, which is set in Palestine at the end of the second world war and will be handed a £25,000 grant.

Hyde Park on Hudson, about King George VI and Queen Elizabeth's visit to Franklyn Roosevelt in 1939, will get £47,540.

Half of a Yellow Sun is to receive £39,375 and Tamara Drewe, an adaptation of a Posy Simmonds novel gets £48,375.

Documentary The Perverts' Guide to Ideology by Sophie Fiennes and Slavoj Zizek has also been awarded £10,000.

Tanya Seghatchian, of the UK Film Council, said: "For UK film-makers, development support can be critical at this early stage and, without new ideas and the money, time and space to develop them and take risks, you can't create a healthy film culture," she added.

"Our objective is to make the development fund a home for talent and, by extension, the UK a place where the most talented film-makers want to come and make films."