35,500 pounds grant for Lennon childhood film

London, July 19 : A film about late Beatles singer John Lennon has landed a lottery-funded development grant by the UK Film Council.

'Nowhere Boy', based on a book by Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird, is being developed by Matt Greenhalgh and is one of seven projects to be given the green light.

Greenhalgh will get 35,500pounds of the 322,000 pounds available.

Greenhalgh said Baird's book 'Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon' had taken him "into a world that illuminated so much about this legendary genius", reports the BBC.

"I could see the drama and film immediately - the women in his life, the men who weren't, the birth of rock and roll, all imposing on a brilliantly complicated adolescent mind."

He added: "Without this story, we would never have heard The Beatles - can you imagine that?"

Among the other projects to receive the funding is director John Maybury's latest film, about US photographer Lee Miller, which has got 116,500 pounds.

Tamara Drewe, a film adaptation of the Posy Simmonds novel about a woman who brings chaos to a countryside writer's retreat, will receive 48,375 pounds.

Playwright Biyi Bandele will adapt Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Orange Prize-winning novel.

'Hyde Park on Hudson', an account of King George VI's 1939 visit to the US, will get 47, 540 pounds. The movie is being developed by Notting Hill director Roger Michell.

Development fund head Tanya Seghatchian said: "For UK film-makers, development support can be critical at this early stage and, without new ideas and the money, time and space to develop them and take risks, you can't create a healthy film culture."

"Our objective is to make the development fund a home for talent and, by extension, the UK a place where the most talented film-makers want to come and make films."

Also landing grants are 'Promised Land' by director Michael Winterbottom and documentary 'The Pervert's Guide to Ideology' by Sophie Fiennes and Slavoj Zizek.

The projects get have been awarded 25,000 pounds and 10,000 pounds respectively.

ANI