Industry | |
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Founder |
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Headquarters |
Sheffield & London, United Kingdom |
Divisions | Warp Films Australia Warp X |
Website | warp |
Warp Films is an independent film and television production company based in Sheffield & London, UK, with a further affiliated company Warp Films Australia based in Melbourne, Australia.
Warp Films was established by Warp Records founding partners Rob Mitchell and Steve Beckett. It was initially created with financial support from NESTA and had a remit to produce a number of short films.
After the death of Rob Mitchell in 2001, Beckett decided to continue with Warp Films and enlisted the expertise of Sheffield friend Mark Herbert (who had just produced the critically acclaimed first series of Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights for Channel 4) to run the company.
The first film, Chris Morris' My Wrongs#8245-8249 & 117, was shot in 2002. It won the award for Best Short Film at the 2003 BAFTA Film Awards and became the first short film DVD single in the UK market.
Through the star of My Wrongs, Paddy Considine, Herbert met director Shane Meadows and asked them to generate an idea for a film. Herbert raised the funding and the result was Warp Films debut feature, Dead Man's Shoes, directed by Shane Meadows in 2004.
Shot in 22 days on a tight budget, and produced from Warp Films’ Sheffield office (at that time a shed in Herbert’s garden), it earned a BAFTA nomination, was nominated for a record eight British Independent Film Awards, won the Hitchcock D’or at the Dinard Festival, and won the Southbank award for Best Film. It received strong critical acclaim and has been hailed as a landmark in British cinema. It was ranked #27 in Empire magazines list of the best British films ever
In 2005, Warp Films produced Rubber Johnny, an experimental short and 42-page book by director Chris Cunningham, featuring music by Warp Records artist Aphex Twin. To this day it continues to shock and amaze audiences.