"It’s 7.45 pm, Hammersmith underground station, Piccadilly Line, twelve stops to final destination. The train is crowded, I’m sharing somebody else’s armpit, and the cacophony of smells overwhelms me. Next to me stands a beautiful woman, my co-writer Harriet Sand. I look at her. ‘Let’s write something about the Black Death, 1348, something with smells, about a foreigner, love, sex, guilt, religion, death, superstition and vengeance’.

Next day we had a meeting with Working Title, we pitched the idea and started researching and writing. Eight months later the Spice Factory picked up the project and together with CF1 they made it happen. Jason Piette incisively reshaped the material and he and Michael Cowan found time to finance the movie between Michael’s visits to the gym.

To write about big emotions we needed an untouched and exotic landscape, a space where the imagination is not restricted by the everyday. 1348 England was that space, the dark ages were hit so hard by the plague that feudal society collapsed forever.

From the onset we rejected a clean look, we wanted mud and dirt, we wanted the coldest rain possible, and wind. On that stylistic landscape a group of characters were born; a corrupt Bishop; a manipulative Priest, a wild Steward, a cowardly Physician, a mysterious French prisoner, a forsaken Lady of the Manor. All the characters and their stories became the parable of the final legs of the vicious plague in Europe.

Lena Headey is an actor with huge courage; she read the script and fought hard to get the time to play the part. She told me, ‘it will be a giggle’. I laughed and replied ‘It’s going to be fucking cold’. She said ‘Let’s do it’.

With the unquestionable talent of casting agents Fallon and Polentarutti and the enthusiasm of Lou Coulson and Sean Gascoigne, an unshakeable cast was put together. David Ball of CF1 in Wales co-ordinated the impossible by bringing together a team of criminals and lowlifes (I include myself in that category) with the skill, creativity and guts to turn our words into celluloid. My DoP, Alistair Meux, child genius and gourmet painted with light like nobody else before.

Anazapta came to be out of mud and passion. Enjoy the film.”

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