Independent production company Velveteen Films, with offices in Newburyport, Mass., and New York City, announced the launch of a book- film department to be overseen by former editor and ghostwriter Brin Stevens, who will be based in Massachusetts.
“The book-film department was a collision of perfect timing and circumstances,” says Velveteen partner Rebecca Cook, who has previously adapted books into screenplays, including Julie Reece Deaver’s YA novel Chicago Blues (HarperCollins) and her own novel, Return to Sender.
The concept of just what a Velveteen Film is has been evolving. Previously this has meant the projects originated with me as writer, director, and producer with an eye toward festival competition and smaller releases.” With the addition of the new department, Cook sees the company hovering between small budget projects and more commercial fare.
Stevens is bringing with her two projects currently being developed for both book and film: Slow Walk Down, which was inspired by a true story of a Harvard graduate’s lifelong struggle with mental illness, and Trip of a Million, a love story set against the backdrop of war-torn Iraqui Kurdistan by Iraqi activist Nesreen Barwari, which had a small printing in Iraq. Both books will be submitted to U.S. publishers in 2011 and casting will begin once the scripts are completed.
Since its founding in 1999, Velveteen has released three feature-length movies, including Shooting Livien with Dominic Managhan of ABC’s Lost, which won an Audience Favorite Award at the 2005 Philadelphia Film Festival. Currently it has two films in active development: Hickory Nation with Kris Kristofferson, Molly Sims, Aimee Teegarden, and Boston-born actor Brian White attached to star, and Cook’s crime drama Return to Sender, set in Charlestown, Mass. “Ideally,” says Cook, “the two will be financed by 2011.”
