Actor Rowe secures screen rights to Calleja's short story

British actor Charlie Rowe has acquired screen rights to make a short film of writer and translator Jen Calleja’s short story "The Natural". 

The story appears in Calleja’s debut short story collection I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time For, published by Prototype in 2020, which Rowe picked up from Burley Fisher Books in Dalston while back in the UK between shoots in LA. He later signed the rights from Prototype.

The story follows the struggling actor Willem who, in a last ditch attempt at trying to find success, contacts the famous Maltese actress Marianne R for advice. He is surprised to hear back from her, and even more surprised that she offers to meet him, and by the bizarre meeting that follows.

Calleja said: “I was very excited when I heard that Charlie wanted to adapt ‘The Natural’. His enthusiasm and personal investment in the story have made it easy to entrust him with it. I’m intrigued to see his interpretation.

Rowe added: “I read ‘The Natural’ at the right time in my life. I felt it had to be adapted immediately. Jen’s heartfelt story spoke to me and I’m overjoyed that she allowed us the rights and we can begin this journey together.”

I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time For was Calleja’s debut short story collection, and was published in March 2020. Calleja’s poetry collection Serious Justice was published in 2016 by Prototype’s publisher Jess Chandler under her former publishing imprint Test Centre.

In November 2022 Prototype will be publishing the first full-length prose text by Calleja, Vehicle: A Verse Novel, a hybrid work of speculative fiction about personal testimony, the life of archives, and "the im/possibility of biography and translation".

Chandler said: “As a writer, translator, publisher, musician and more, Jen is an artist who understands the craft and language of so many different artistic forms, and it’s incredibly exciting that one of her stories will be translated onto the screen.”