Tim Haslam Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

UK sales and production firm Embankment Films (The Father, The Wife) has set a wholesale rejig of its nonfiction arm with four new senior hires.

Naman Ramachandran The U.K.’s Embankment Films has made four key hires to lead its unscripted division. Nick Taussig and Malcolm Neaum both join as producer, unscripted; Sophie Harmer as head of production, unscripted; and Henry Farrington as head researcher. BAFTA and Grierson nominated feature documentary producer Taussig (“McQueen,” “Audrey,” “Killing Escobar”) teams with factual television series veteran Neaum (“I Shouldn’t Be Alive,” “Savile Row”) to produce varied unscripted series formats. Harmer and Taussig produced “Call Me Kate” and “Charlie Mackesy: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and Me,” celebrating the work of this year’s Oscar-winning director and writer.

UK production and sales company Embankment Films has hired former WestEnd Films executive Toby Hill as Head of Production & Acquisitions.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Variety can reveal a first look at Maggie Smith and Laura Linney in the new drama “The Miracle Club,” which has wrapped production in Ireland and is now in post. The Dublin-shot film, which also stars Kathy Bates, centers on four Dublin women who come together on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Lourdes in France, where they discover the solidarity in their friendship and unveil their own personal miracles. Directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan, “The Miracle Club” wrapped over the summer at Ardmore Studios in Dublin. The film also features Oscar nominee Stephen Rea (“The Crying Game,” “The Usual Suspects”) and up-and-coming star Agnes O’Casey (“Longbourn,” “Ridley Road”).

EXCLUSIVE: UK sales and production firm Embankment (The Father, The Wife) is teaming up with veteran UK producer Kevin Loader (The Death Of Stalin, The Lady In The Van) to create new label Free Range Entertainment.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorLondon-based film sales and financing house Embankment Films has closed a major international deal for “Joyride,” starring Olivia Colman, who is Oscar nominated for Florian Zeller’s “The Father,” another of Embankment’s titles.