Short films featuring stars reading from the titles shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize have been released, Deadline reported. The readers include Lewis Gribben (Douglas Stuart's John of John), Kathryn Hunter (M. John Harrison's The End of Everything), Paterson Joseph (Marlon James's The Disappearers), Himesh Patel (Luke Kennard's Black Bag), Maxine Peake (Elizabeth Strout's The Things We Never Say), and Savannah Steyn (Rebecca Perry's May We Feed the King).
Holly Blakey, who directs the six two-minute films, said: "This year we wanted to push the visual language somewhere new, shooting much of it outside and finding something looser, more textural and alive in the process. It was less about narrativizing the books for me, more about searching for the feelings they leave you with--fear, humor, the great voids between us, or something altogether more existential."
Booker Prize Foundation CEO Gaby Wood added: "Every year, the short films we make of extracts from the Booker Prizes shortlists draw more and more readers to the books. It's also a fantastic opportunity for us to work with a range of creative people in an art form adjacent to literature, and this latest set of films is our most ambitious yet."