The Shell Seekers

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                          CONTACT:    Pam Slay, 818.755.2480

‘THE SHELL SEEKERS’ – A TWO HOUR HALLMARK

MOVIE STARRING ACADEMY AWARD^® WINNERS

VANESSA REDGRAVE AND MAXIMILIAN SCHELL

TO PREMIERE IN SUMMER 2007

The story of love, redemption and family bonds based on the #1

New York Times best-selling novel comes to television for the first time

Hallmark Channel has announced that “The Shell Seekers,” an two hour Hallmark Original Movie, based on Rosamunde Pilcher’s beloved #1 New York Times bestseller that has captivated millions, will have its US Television Premiere on the network Summer 2007.

The absorbing saga features an extraordinary cast including Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell, Charles Edwards and Alastair MacKenzie, and revolves around the resilient daughter of a famed artist who struggles to rebuild her shattered family after she suffers a mild heart attack.

          When Penelope Keeling (Academy Award^®, Golden Globe and Emmy^® Award winner Vanessa Redgrave, “The Gathering Storm”), the feisty 64-year-old daughter of a famous artist, suffers a mild heart attack, it signals in her the chance and the need to reassess her life – by reflecting on the choices that have defined it – and gives her the chance to revisit her past.  Leaving her home in the English countryside, the independent Penelope travels to the Mediterranean paradise of Ibiza to stay with her headstrong daughter, Olivia (Victoria Smurfit, “About A Boy”).  Here, she meets Olivia’s lover, Cosmo (Sebastian Koch, “Amen”) and Cosmo’s teenage daughter, Antonia (Stephanie Stumph, “Stubbe”), with whom Penelope instantly bonds and imparts the wisdom of her remarkable life.

Shifting through time, falling into place like the pieces of a puzzle, the story of Penelope’s life unfolds – her bohemian childhood in London; her unhappy, loveless marriage to her naval officer husband Ambrose (Toby Fisher, “The Whole of the Moon”); her relationship with the dashing and romantic military officer Richard (Alistair MacKenzie, “Mouth to Mouth”) – the only man she ever truly loved and then lost to the war; her often volatile relationship with her embittered, selfish children and her efforts to repair those cracks because she still loves them; and the invaluable worth of her most prized possession – her late father’s exquisite painting, The Shell Seekers, a unifying work of art with the power to bring her  family together or destroy the bonds forever.

Academy Award^® and Golden Globe winner Maximilian Schell (“Julia”) heads an extraordinary cast in an uncommon love story of one family’s three generations of hope, heartbreak, forgiveness and renewal.

Directed by Piers Haggard (“Pennies from Heaven”) and adapted for the screen by Brian Finch (“Goodbye, Mr. Chips”) from the acclaimed international bestseller by Rosamunde Pilcher, “The Shell Seekers” finally comes to television as a film as epic and grand as the novel that inspired it.  Marian Rees and Anne Hopkins are the Co-Executive Producers.  David Cunliffe and Rikolt von Gagern are producers. 

“The Shell Seekers” is an RHI Films Presentation of A Gate Television Ltd and Clasart Film und Fernsehproduktion for Tele-München in association with ZDF and ZDF-Enterprises and ORF supported by FilmFernseh-Fonds Bayern.

Hallmark Channel, owned and operated by Crown Media Holdings, Inc., is a 24-hour basic cable network that provides a diverse slate of high-quality entertainment programming to a national audience of 75 million subscribers.  The top tier program service is distributed through more than 5,300 cable systems and communities as well as direct-to-home satellite services across the country.  Hallmark Channel consistently ranks among the top 10 ad-supported cable networks in Total Day and Prime Time household ratings and is the nation’s leading network in providing family-friendly programming.  Crown Media also operates a second 24-hour linear channel, Hallmark Movie Channel.

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