Toilers of the Sea no longer a silent movie

And after the disappointment of seeing the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society filmed entirely off island, the husband-and-wife producer team of David Shanks and Joy Mellins say their movie would be filmed entirely in Guernsey, the setting for the Victor Hugo classic tale.

Three months after the States agreed a £25,000 investment in the project, the producers say they are well on their way to raising the initial £100,000 target.

The film designer has also identified the four key locations required to film it locally.

‘The designer has explored the island to raid the possible locations and he has broken it up into four different worlds,’ said Ms Mellins.

‘It has brought the film to life for us,’ she added.

Although site permissions have yet to be confirmed, it is hoped to utilise a parish church for the opening sequence.

Mr Shanks, whose TV and film production credits are long, will have to find £10-12m. to fund the full-length feature film, which would pay a powerful, emotional, and respectful homage not only to Victor Hugo and the novel, but also to the Bailiwick of Guernsey.

For Mr Shanks, who previously produced eight episodes of the highly-popular ITV series Ballykissangel, as well as several movies, the dream has long been to translate Les Travailleurs de la Mer – Toilers of the Sea – into a feature film.

He is a Guernseyman by connection, who arrived in the island aged 8. His sister still lives in Guernsey and their father was a former Deputy Bailiff.

It was almost a year ago that the couple first made public their intentions to make the film as a silent movie.

But that idea has since been dropped.

‘It cries out to be a film,’ said Ms Mellins, on her latest scouting trip to the island.

‘It is so visual and it has all the ingredients today’s audience wants really, it has got the jeopardy, the unrequited love. It’s got it all,’ she said.

Mr Shanks admits it was his mistake to imagine it as a silent movie, but that was entirely down to a succession of poor scripts.

‘We had four or five written and they all came across a bit banal, they did not quite grab the strength and power of the story. They lacked energy. That’s why I said “let’s get rid of all the words and make it a silent movie with just music”. So we went down that route when we started a year ago and then realised actually we were wrong.’

Previously, a string of Hollywood stars have been linked to the movie, which will tell the tale of a fisherman from Guernsey who tries to find a shipwreck so he can marry a local woman.

Tom Hardy, Jason Isaacs, Cillian Murphy and Chris Pine have all been pencilled in as potential actors to play the lead character of the heroic Gilliatt.