We’re very proud to confirm that the 2024 film ‘Conclave’ currently in cinemas was produced by our Honorary Fellow Tessa Ross.
Tessa Ross is the acclaimed producer of many critically admired films and television programmes. Her credits include ‘12 Years A Slave’, ‘Billy Elliott’, ‘The Zone of Interest’, ‘Four Lions’, ‘127 Hours’, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and, for TV, ‘Sherwood’. In May 2009, Ross was named by ‘Time’ magazine as one of the hundred most influential people in the world. She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2010 Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for her services to Broadcasting, in recognition of her contribution as Controller of Film and Drama at Channel 4. In 2016, she set up House Productions with Juliette Howell, former head of Working Title.
‘Conclave’ has been a phenomenal success since opening at the end of October 2024. It has garnered significant critical acclaim and Oscar buzz for its stars, and also had an impressive box office performance ($6.6m in the US alone over its opening weekend.
However, bringing a subject as secretive and to some extent taboo as papal elections to the big screen was not easy. In The Hollywood Report, Ross explains how it took ten years to turn Robert Harris’ eponymous novel into the film now showing, a journey that involved securing the collaboration of screenwriter Peter Straughan (‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’) and Edward Berger (‘All Quiet on the Western Front’) as well as a cast including Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini in a career tour de force as the largely unspeaking yet powerful nun who plays the only woman attending the election.
Read how Tessa Ross brought ‘CONCLAVE’ to the big screen.
UK artwork for Conclave. All rights reserved