Filming wraps this week on the SWM / UKFC funded pilot of local director-producer team Sunandan and Yugesh Walia's Bounty Hunter, which also benefited from significant production support from prolific UK indie Vertigo.
Bounty Hunter is a thriller about a man who returns run-away Asian women to their families then falls in love with one of his victims only to discover she belongs to a ruthless gangster. It's an original story by the Walias and the sharp and gripping screenplay has been crafted by writer Martin Smith.
The pilot, shooting in Birmingham, is intended to help raise the final funds required to shoot the feature itself next winter. Shivani Ghai (House of Saddam, Sinchronicity) plays Nazia and Raza Jaffrey (Eastern Promises, Spooks) takes the role of Bounty Hunter Kamal.
SWM have been developing the script with the Walias for over 2 years and have now provided match funding to make the pilot - which marks a tremendously exciting step for this talented duo.
Producer/Director profile
Sunandan and Yugesh Walia are brothers and a Producer/Director team. They began their film making careers by directing short fiction films which were included in the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals in the early 80¹s. Since setting up Endboard Productions in 1985 they have produced & directed a string of highly rated and critically acclaimed observational documentaries from different parts of the world for all the British TV networks.
The brothers are now developing fiction projects for the cinema. They have four films in active development including Bounty Hunter and COLD BLOOD a thriller set in Antarctica in the near future by local writer-director Simon Bovey.
They were recently part of the UKFC's "Breakout Brits" programme and spent a week in LA pitching their film ideas to top Hollywood executives.
(Picture by Lauren Hatchard)