Sands Films is a small British film production company, founded by producer Richard Goodwin and director

Christine Edzard Christine Edzard (born 15 February 1945)Christine Edzard
IMDb. Retrieved 29 March 2017. is a

Rotherhithe Rotherhithe () is a district of south-east London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse on the north bank, as well as the Isle of D ...

, London. The company is known for its production of costumes for period dramas.

Background

The building that Sands Films occupies is a former

granary A granary is a storehouse or room in a barn for threshed grain or animal feed. Ancient or primitive granaries are most often made of pottery. Granaries are often built above the ground to keep the stored food away from mice and other animals ...

, now a grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The business was founded in 1975 and since 1976, it has housed a small film stage, film theatre, picture library, workshops and costume stores. The Goodwins initially used the derelict building rent-free, on the basis they completely repaired and renovated the property. As an independent film production studio Sands Films has its own soundproof stage, workshops, costume department, set construction workshop, cutting room, cinema and other services needed to make films. It is a self-sufficient and fully integrated production facility. Cinema and television companies as varied as

Working Title A working title, which may be abbreviated and styled in trade publications after a putative title as (wt), also called a production title or a tentative title, is the temporary title of a product or project used during its development, usually ...

, Talkback,

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

Freemantle Freemantle is a suburb and electoral ward in Southampton, England. There are similarly named places in Hampshire: notably Henry II's hunting lodge in Kingsclere; a suburb of Hannington, Hampshire, Hannington; and Freemantle Common in Bitterne. ...

, Ridley Scott Associates, Sky TV, the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Ope ...

, the

New York Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...

and

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

have used the facilities at Sands Films for their projects. With the

covid-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

lockdown the studio has intensified its live streaming activities.

Productions

Productions by Sands Films include '' Tales of Beatrix Potter'' (1971), '' Stories from a Flying Trunk'' (1976), ''The Nightingale'' (1981), ''Biddy'' (1982), ''

Little Dorrit ''Little Dorrit'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London. Arthur Cl ...

'' (1987), '' The Fool'' (1989), ''As You Like It (1991)'', ''Amhal and the Night Visitors'' (1996), ''The IMAX Nutcracker'' (1997) and ''The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream'' (2001). The studio has been successful in delivering full production packages to companies in need of a London studio base, such as ''

A Passage to India ''A Passage to India'' is a 1924 novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th century English liter ...

'' (1984) to '' Bright Star'' (2009). Sands Films was the production base for

The Long Day Closes (film) ''The Long Day Closes'' is a 1992 British film written and directed by Terence Davies. It stars Marjorie Yates, Leigh McCormack and Anthony Watson. It was entered into the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Plot The film is set in Liverpool in the mid- ...

for which all the sets were built. Sands Films supplied facilities to Working Title's productions of ''

Anna Karenina ''Anna Karenina'' ( rus, «Анна Каренина», p=ˈanːə kɐˈrʲenʲɪnə) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever writt ...

'' (2012) and '' Les Miserables'' (2012). Other productions the company has produced costumes include all the Agatha Christie films produced by

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

(including ''

Death on the Nile ''Death on the Nile'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 1 November 1937 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at se ...

''), '' Vanity Fair'' (2004), ''

The Phantom of the Opera ''The Phantom of the Opera'' (french: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pier ...

'' (2004), '' Fingersmith'' (2005), and '' Pride & Prejudice'' (2005). It hand-embroidered the costumes for the main characters in the BBC's 2015 series ''

Wolf Hall ''Wolf Hall'' is a 2009 historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, ''Wolf Hall'' is a symp ...

''. In 2011, the company's annual turnover exceeded £1 million for the first time. After its rent almost quadrupled since 2000 and it had been asked to pay back-rent for an unrenovated part of the building, the Goodwins began to raise funds to purchase the property. This included selling shares at £500 each, and later in 2012, they successfully bought the property, with plans to modernise its production facilities. Managing director Olivier Stockman has worked for Sands Studios since 1980. In 2017, Sands Films began production of ''The Good Soldier Schwejck'', written and directed by Christine Edzard and based on ''

The Good Soldier Švejk ''The Good Soldier Švejk'' () is an unfinished satirical dark comedy novel by Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek, published in 1921–1923, about a good-humored, simple-minded, middle-aged man who pretends to be enthusiastic to serve Austria-Hungar ...

'' by

Jaroslav Hašek Jaroslav Hašek (; 1883–1923) was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian and anarchist. He is best known for his novel '' The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War'', an unfinished collection of farcical inc ...

. The project partly was funded by the auction of a costume worn by

Mark Rylance Sir David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960) is a British actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Laurence ...

in the BBC's ''

''.

References

External links

Sands Films company website

Londonist Discovers Rotherhithe Picture Research Library

* ttps://www.imdb.com/company/co0002760/ Sands Films at IMDb {{Authority control British film studios Film production companies of the United Kingdom Rotherhithe