‘Think of England,’ WWII Porn Satire, Sets Ensemble Cast

Principal photography has wrapped on “Think of England,” a satirical WWII drama from BAFTA-nominated writer/director Richard Hawkins (“Theory of Flight, “Everything”).

The newly-announced film is set in the run up to the Allied invasion of France, when two British film projects are commission at the very highest level. For one, Winston Churchill himself insists that Laurence Olivier immediately embark upon a lavish production of Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” securing for him a state-of-the-art, 3-strip Technicolour camera and all of the available film stock.

As the description goes, “Think of England” is the story of the other, following a small and very disparate group of people sent to a remote Orkney island beach and tasked with a top secret mission — the making of pornographic films for the boys at the front. “For who knows how long this war still has to run, and fighting morale — as we learned only too well from the last one — is everything,” reads the synopsis.

The group of would-be pornographic filmmakers include a very war-damaged former movie star; a celebrated German film-director; a munitions-machinist-come-aspiring-actress; an Etonian captain from the Ministry of Information; an aging, alcoholic hair-and-makeup artist; and a young lad, as innocent as can be and right on the very threshold of war’s bloodbath. There’s also a half-starved and very ragged Luftwaffe pilot, watching on from afar.

An ensemble of talent has been cast in the the roles, including Jack Bandeira (“Lockwood & Co”), Natalie Quarry (“Call The Midwife“), John McCrea (“Cruella”), Ronni Ancona (“Big Impression”), Ben Bela Böhm (“Angels & Demons”), Ollie Maddigan (“The Olive Boy”) and Oscar Hoppe (“Munich: The Edge of War”).  

“Think of England” is produced by father-daughter duo, Nick O’Hagan (“The Good Liar,” “The Serpent Queen”) and Poppy O’Hagan…