One of the grimmer stories in world cinema over the past decade or so has concerned the difficulties faced by Terrence Davies in getting his films financed. His gorgeous The Deep Blue Sea, released last year, was the British director's first dramatic feature in a decade.

What do you know? It seem that, after years of trying, Davies is finally set to go into production on his adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon novel’s

Sunset Song

. Regarded as something of a classic in Scottish literary circles, the book details the travails of a poverty- stricken woman in rural Scotland during the early years of the last century.

“I think I may be about to make something, but I can’t say,” Davies told Reel News last October. It seems his optimism was not misplaced.