Michael Radford halts 'Mula' shoot

Funding issues cause suspension of production

By JOHN HOPEWELL

Radford

Michael Radford has suspended the shoot of his latest film “The Mule” (La mula), a Spanish Civil War comedy.

Radford told his crew Saturday he had decided to stop shooting given the lack of availability of co-production coin from the U.K. co-producer, Radford’s own London-based Workhorse Entertainment label, and from Ireland’s Subotica Entertainment.

“The Mule” had just completed six weeks of a seven-week shoot; cameras started to roll Aug. 31.

Budgeted at E7 million ($10.5 million) and fully financed, “The Mule” is lead-produced by Alejandra Frade and Bruce St. Clair’s Gheko Films in Madrid. Malaga’s Gheko Films Sur co-produces.

Radford has frequently worked in Italy on films including “The Merchant of Venice” and “Il postino.” “The Mule” is his first foray into Spanish-language filmmaking. The U.K. Film Council, Workhorse, Subotica, Germany’s Integral Film and the Irish Film Board have all invested in the comedy.

Given the backing from such blue-chip public subsidy orgs as the U.K. Film Council and the Irish Film Board, the big question is why “Mule’s” British and Irish co-producers haven’t been able to unlock this public funding.

The root problem appears to be Frade’s reluctance to sign off on key interparty agreements and other documentation needed to unlock this public funding, allowing “Mule’s” British and Irish producers to cash flow their production commitments. One result appears to be that the pic’s British crew members have not been paid for nine weeks.

In order to release funds from the U.K. Film Council and Irish Film Board, “all the co-producers have to sign together a number of agreements,” Radford said. “In anticipation of this, I, the crew and the facilities companies started work in good faith. However, Gheko Films has consistently failed to sign these documents for reasons known only to them.”

Radford is now in London with the U.K. Film Council and the Irish co-producers trying to find a way to complete the film.

Simon Perry, head of the Irish Film Board, said IFB financing on the film is predicated on Radford shooting and finishing it, or on Radford approving anything shot without him.

In a statement, a U.K. Film Council spokesman said: “The U.K. Film Council has supported ‘The Mule’ from an early stage, having awarded Michael Radford funding to develop the film as well as agreeing to make a production award to the film of almost £1.1 million ($1.79 million). However, with the film a week away from the completion of shooting, we have become increasingly concerned that the film’s financing arrangements have not yet been closed with the co-financiers. The U.K. Film Council, along with the Irish financiers involved in the project, has tried to keep discussions open with the Spanish producers and have urged them to fully collaborate in order to finalize the financial closing of the film.”

(Leo Barraclough in London contributed to this report.)