Typist Artist Pirate King

The film is a fictionalised portrait of the late “avant-garde and misunderstood” artist Audrey Amiss.[2] Amiss was an artist who studied at the Royal Academy of Arts, but was unable to complete her training after being hospitalised due to mental illness. She died in 2013, leaving behind a vast collection of artworks and writings which were discovered after her death, and subsequently donated posthumously to Wellcome Collection.

The film centres on a fictionalised road trip with Amiss, played by Monica Dolan, and her psychiatric nurse, played by Kelly Macdonald, in which they travel north and reconnect with key individuals and moments from Amiss's past.[1]

The film is based on extensive archival research into Amiss's archive at Wellcome Collection,[3] undertaken while writer-director Carol Morley was a recipient of a Wellcome Screenwriting Fellowship. The film uses imagery and artworks from the archive collection, creating a fictionalised narrative of a real life individual, drawn from archival sources.

• Monica Dolan as Audrey Amiss
• Kelly Macdonald as Sandra
• Gina McKee as Dorothy
• Christine Bottomley as Joan
• Kieran Bew as Gabe Patier
• James Jaysen Bryhan as Kitchen Porter
• Kya Brame as Pouting Pamela
• Joanne Allen as Knitting Nelly
• Gavin Kitchen as Policeman
• Matilda Firth as Magic Girl

Carol Morley was awarded a Wellcome Screenwriting Fellowship in 2015, where she was introduced to the Audrey Amiss Archive by archivists at Wellcome Collection. The archive had recently been acquired by Wellcome in 2014, donated by Audrey's niece and nephew a year after Amiss's death in 2013. Morley undertook extensive research at Wellcome using Amiss's archive, with the aim of developing a film about Amiss.

The archive comprises hundreds of sketchbooks, scrapbooks, log books, photo albums, account books, record books, and paintings. Morley made use of the collection while it was uncatalogued, with cataloguing later beginning in 2018 to ensure that the collection could be made more widely available for public use.[4] (The collection has since been fully catalogued and is now freely available to consult for research in the Wellcome Library.)[5] During the research process, she also met with members of Amiss's family and others who knew her in life, as well as speaking with archivists, conservator, and other Wellcome staff. She wrote about her experiences researching Amiss for a 2016 piece in The Observer.[6]

The title, "Typist Artist Pirate King", derives from Amiss's passport, where she listed her occupation as just that: 'typist artist pirate king'. The passport is held in Audrey Amiss' archive at Wellcome Collection.[7]

Morley received funding from the British Film Institute to write and produce the film.[8] In November 2021, Monica Dolan, Kelly Macdonald, and Gina McKee were announced as being on-board the project, with Jane Campion acting as executive producers and Metro International handling sales. Also involved were director of photography Agnès Godard and production designer Janey Levick. Additional funding also came from BCP Asset Management, MBK Productions, LipSync, Genesis Entertainment, Wellcome Trust, and BBC Films.[9] Producers for the feature were Ameenah Ayub Allen and Cairo Cannon.[10] Filming started in November 2021 in Yorkshire.[11] The film entered post-production in 2022.

The film had its world premiere at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival on 19 November 2022.[12] The film had its UK premiere on 9 March 2023 at the Glasgow Film Festival.[13] In May 2023, Metro International sold distribution rights to the film for the United Kingdom and Ireland to Modern Films.[14] Planned limited release is set for 27 October 2023, with a wider release one week later on 3 November 2023.[15]

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian described a “warm and sympathetic film” and that the “casting works with the writing and the black comic and tragicomic nature of their ordeal is often hilarious.”[16]

• Typist Artist Pirate King at IMDb