About
David P. Kelly Films is a London based production company that was founded by David P. Kelly and Elen P. Lewis whilst under a producer’s development and co-production agreement with Working Title films. The company’s focus is developing, producing and co-financing UK and International feature films and feature documentaries.
Our Work
The company has extensive experience of producing and story development on UK and international projects having developed scripts from emerging talent to Oscar-winning writers and development ideas with companies like Working title, La Huit and Elton John’s Rocket Pictures. We are currently developing projects with Screen Ireland, Happy Moon along with having a first look arrangement with Tim Macready’s UK Pygmalion Pictures.
The company expanded into cinema exhibition in 2014 with Ed Fletcher (former C.E.O at Curzon) and Eve Gabereau (former CEO at Modern films distributors) at Soda pictures to purchase Shortwave Cinema, at Bermondsey Square, London www.timeout.com/london/cinemas/shortwave-cinema. This consortium successfully transformed a single screen cafe-bar into a popular local independent first-run cinema-cafe. David then advised and became a non-executive director of the Time-out award winning ArtHouse Cinema www.arthousecrouchend.co.uk in Crouch End, London, who are due to open two new cinema-multi use sites in 2025/26.
The company has also collaborated with the Barbican on cinema soundtrack events, initiating and overseeing projects like the Pet Shop Boys performing their own soundtrack to the film Battleship Potemkin.
Selected Feature films and feature docs include – John Forte’s Mad about Mambo with Universal Pictures, starring Keri Russell and William Ash; Mark Cousins’ The Storms of Jeremy Thomas; Aki Kaurismaki’s I Hired a Contract Killer; Sherry Hormann’s Desert Flower starring Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Anthony Mackie, Meera Syal, Juliet Stevenson and Timothy Spall; Vera Glagoleva’s Two Women, starring Ralph Fiennes.
Our latest production is feature documentary Zare Jian’s I Will Revenge This World With Love – S. Paradjanov, which includes interviews with cinema greats Atom Egoyan, Emir Kusturica, Tarsem Singh and Chulpan Khamatova. The feature doc was in the Official Selection in Venice film festival in 2024.
News
A World premiere for us in 2026
‘I will revenge this World with love – S.Paradjanov’
KLASSIKI, the world’s only streaming service dedicated to great cinema from Eastern Europe and the wider region presents a Valentine’s Day premiere of Armenian filmmaker, Zara Jian’s ‘I will revenge this World with love – S. Paradjanov’, which was Executive produced by David P. Kelly.
UK Premiere – Summer 2025
‘I will revenge this World with love – S.Paradjanov’
Armenia | 2024 | Zara Jian | 110m | Subtitles | PG
The legacy and inspiration of Soviet director Sergei Parajanov is at the centre of this new documentary from director Zara Jian. An impressive array of auteur directors are interviewed including Atom Egoyan, Tarsem Singh and Emir Kusturica, as well as other artists such Chulpan Khamatova, to discuss the work of the Georgian-born Parajanov, who became a revolutionary force in international cinema with ‘Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors’ (1965), his first film to reject the socialist realism of officially sanctioned Soviet cinema in favour of a more experimental, poetic visual storytelling.
World premiere at Venice film festival 2024 and International release
‘I will revenge this World with Love – S. Paradjanov’
David P. Kelly Films – London are thrilled to announce that our next film by Zara Jian ‘I will revenge this world with Love – S. Paradjanov’ has been chosen for official selection at the Venice film festival 2024. We are looking forward to celebrating the world premiere in Venice this week and then a world-wide release with our partners on this film Boomerang Media. AM AVA Films – Armenia and La Huit – Paris.
For further press information and interview enquiries with the film’s director and cast during the Venice film festival and its USA release contact:
Paul Ockelford, Senior Account Director (International Film), Filmed Entertainment Division,
Premier Public Relations Ltd
2‑4 Bucknall Street, London, WC2H 8LA
T +44 207 292 5073
M +44 7904 855 604
paul.ockelford@premiercomms.com
www.premiercomms.com
In the press
Cannes publications:
- Jason Isaacs joins the cast of UK- South Africa action drama ‘The Bleeding Ground’ (Screen Daily, 14 May 2025)
- Jason Isaacs rejoint le casting de ‘The Bleeding Ground’ (Le film français, 14 May 2025)
- Jason Isaacs joins the cast of UK- South Africa action drama ‘The Bleeding Ground’ (IMDB, 14 May 2025)
- Venice Classics: “I will revenge this world with Love” S. Paradjanov by Zara Jian (Business Doc Europe, 5 September 2024)
- Soviet Cinema Legend Inspires Artist in Exile in ‘I Will Revenge This World With Love – S. Parajanov’ with Exclusive Trailer (The Hollywood Reporter, 2 September 2024)
- UK producer David P Kelly joins Sergei Paradjanov doc (ScreenDaily, 19 February 2024)
- ‘The Storms of Jeremy Thomas’: New film produced by Central Saint Martins graduate David Kelly. Read more
In distribution: ‘The Storms of Jeremy Thomas’
Catch Mark Cousins’ portrait of acclaimed UK producer Jeremy Thomas across the USA and the UK (Curzon Cinema).
With thanks to Cohen Media Group and Visit Films.
Details of film, cinemas and tickets
For decades, legendary film producer Jeremy Thomas has driven from England to the Cannes Film Festival. This time, he’s joined by acclaimed filmmaker Mark Cousins.
On their intimate, visual five-day road movie through rural France, they remember some of the most acclaimed and controversial films ever made: The Last Emperor, which won nine Oscars for Thomas when he was still in his 30s, including Best Picture; David Cronenberg’s Crash and its Cannes scandal; the masterpiece of sexual obsession, Bad Timing. Thomas introduces us to his remarkable world of movie stars–Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, David Bowie–and daring international cinema, influenced by punk and counter-culture. The journey is intercut with acclaimed actors Tilda Swinton and Debra Winger, who give exclusive insights into the man and his work.
Illustrated with a dazzling range of film clips and rich insights about creativity and survival, The Storms of Jeremy Thomas is a road movie portrait of France, a film school, and–in the era of streaming and corporatization–a passionate call to arms for movies that get to the heart of life.
The Storms of Jeremy Thomas: Cohen Media Group
cohenmedia.net • 1 min read
The film was chosen in official selection for Cannes 2021
It was shown at the London film festival and now it is to have a UK-wide release with Curzon
The film has been sold to both Curzon UK and Cohen media group-USA, as announced in DEADLINE
Company Members of BAFTA, EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY & PACT
Exhibition: Rooms Through Time – A Room Upstairs in 1956
Our company is proud to announce being invited to sponsor and actively support the Museum of the Home’s new exhibition ‘Rooms Through Time – A Room Upstairs in 1956’: Please visit website