Film version of The Truthful Phone planned

A little-known short story from Terry Jones is set to be adapted into a short film.

The Truthful Phone is a dark comedy about Mae Morris, who unleashes a gypsy curse that exposes her secrets to her townsfolk.

Welsh director Carl Rock optioned the story three years ago, and has been working on it ever since. It was originally published as part of Jones's Evil Machines anthology in 2011, and the former Python granted the films rights personally.

Rock said: 'The Truthful Phone is an homage to all the great eighties films that I loved growing up; Labyrinth, Goonies and Gremlins.

'A dark fantasy comedy set in Wales, it takes inspiration from mythic Welsh folklore and the tradition of surreal British comedy, mixing it up with creatures made and animated by one of the best puppeteers in the world, Andy Heath, who has worked on Star Wars and The Muppets.'

He describes the film as 'a Welsh Gremlins with shades of Guillermo Del Toro'.

A Kickstarter campaign has been launched today to try to secure the £25,000 he needs to make the film, on top of funding he's received from a BFI-backed fund.

Jones himself used crowdfunding to finance the book in the first place, becoming the first book published via the Unbound platform

The original short story can be read here – and here's a teaser trailer:

Published: 8 Jan 2016