EXCLUSIVE: Global Constellation and Cinetic Media have boarded Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s Marianne Faithfull portrait Broken English, which is set to world premiere out of competition at the Venice Film Festival this week.
Broken English is billed as career-spanning portrait of the late singer, actress and poet, who rose to fame in the 1960s. Bafta nominees Forsyth and Pollard have credits including 20,000 Days On Earth on which they collaborated with musician Nick Cave.
Global Constellation has boarded international sales alongside Cinetic Media repping North American rights.
Shot in the last years of Faithfull’s life, and featuring her last recorded performance, Broken English captures her in rare, unguarded moments as she reflects on art, survival, and legacy.
With a cast led by Tilda Swinton and George MacKay, the film follows the pair as they take on the roles of investigators within the framework of The Ministry of Not Forgetting, an undercover poetic construct committed to rescuing cultural memory from oblivion. Faithfull becomes its first “subject,” rendered through a tapestry of interviews, archival footage, and soundscapes.
Broken English also features contributions from her friends and longtime collaborators, including Cave, Warren Ellis, Courtney Love, Suki Waterhouse, Beth Orton, and Jehnny Beth. Additional cast also include Zawe Ashton, Calvin Demba, and Sophia Di Martino.
Broken English is produced by Beth Earl of Rustic Canyon Pictures. The film’s executive producers include Thomas Benski, Marisa Clifford, Isabel Davies and Tim O’Shea for Magna Studios, Marc Robinson for Globe Originals, Julia Xu for Q&A Entertainment, and Victoria Steventon.
Cold Iron Pictures are on board with Miranda Bailey and Julia Stier co-executive producing. Oliver Hsu, Jennifer Lin, Cristina Ljungberg, Tien-Tsung Ma, Stuart Souter and Alvin Wang are co-executive producers. Liam Coutts and Laura Rees are co-producing. Kate Griffiths, Mike Griffiths and Tess McNally-Watson are the archive producers on the project.
Fabien Westerhoff, the founder and CEO of Global Constellation, said: “Like Marianne Faithfull herself, Broken English refuses to follow convention, offering a raw and electric cinematic journey into the icon’s creative life. With Tilda Swinton and George MacKay as its guides, the film becomes a moving inquiry, a reckoning with memory, mortality, and the myths we leave behind that speaks to devoted fans and new audiences alike.”