EXCLUSIVE: Cameras are rolling on Epic — The Life & Occasions of David Lean, with Assemble Media boarding the documentary.
The Sky Arts function comes from director Barnaby Thompson (Mad Concerning the Boy — The Noel Coward Story), with Embankment Movies and Fragile Movies now joined by Assemble’s Jack Heller (Moviepass, Moviecrash) on the manufacturing and financing.
Assemble’s Caitlin de Lisser-Ellen as an govt producer. Embankment’s Nick Taussig is the producer, with the corporate behind The Father and The Spouse additionally buying the doc internationally.
A spring 2026 theatrical launch date has been slated within the UK, with Sky Arts transmitting it over the summer time. We first reported on the undertaking in September final yr.
“I’m thrilled to hitch Barnaby and Nick on this journey,” stated Heller, founding father of Assemble. “With IMAX and large-format filmmaking shaping the way forward for cinema, there’s no higher time to discover the lifetime of the person who redefined epic filmmaking and laid the groundwork for it.”
The movie seems to be into the lifetime of British director David Lean, whose movies included Lawrence of Arabia, Physician Zhivago and A Bridge of the River Kwai. Via collaboration with the British Movie Institute Nationwide Archive, which holds a trove of David Lean paperwork in its Particular Collections vault, the movie accommodates never-before-seen archive and contributors from main movie administrators.
Per the synopsis: “Haunted by the shadow of his dismissive father and his puritan upbringing, David Lean made among the most stunning and profitable movies of all time. Married six instances, he created layered and sophisticated narratives in his work, whereas struggling to seek out connection and which means in his private life. He outlined the epic, and it was via his work that he discovered which means, function and contentment. It was as if he lived for his movies and nothing else.”
“The epic high quality and energy of David Lean’s movies outline the cinematic canvass on which all different nice movies are measured,” stated Jack Oliver, Head of Co-Productions at Sky. “The chance to take pleasure in the great thing about Lean’s movies and discover the complexity of the person is vastly interesting within the imaginative and prescient Barnaby Thompson shared in regards to the undertaking. Sky is happy by the chance of working once more with Embankment movies, we share the identical ethos and ambition in cinematic function documentaries of iconic figures and getting the story behind the story.”
