A Wimbledon writer has adapted her own critically-acclaimed mystery romance novel set into a feature film starring Mission Impossible Rogue Nation’s Rebecca Ferguson and Charles Dance.

Shamim Sarif’s 2004 novel Despite the Falling Snow is about a female spy in Cold War Russia in 1959 who falls in love with an idealistic politician and leads to a mystery which only he can unravel in 1990s New York.

The author took a year to write the book, which was praised by critics, after being inspired by the idea of two people thinking about the world in completely different ways.

She told us: “I like to have strong female protagonists. I like a political backdrop because I think that always raises the stakes in what people are up against.

“That era of Russian history was always fascinating to me so I thought it would be quite something to have a Cold War story from a female perspective as well, because you don’t get that very often.”

Despite the Falling Snow is the third of her own novels that Shamim has adapted for the big screen under the banner of the Kingston-based company which she runs with producer wife Hanan Kattan.

She said: “I have always wanted to work in film and be a novelist.

“My first experience working in Hollywood optioning a script was not a great experience. They asked me to compromise quite severely, putting love scenes into a story of unrequited love.

“It was really what gave me and my wife Hanan the impetus to set up our own production company, Enlightenment Productions, and see if we can do it independently.

“It has been really tough but it has been really rewarding as well.”

She added: “It is a huge challenge. It is like climbing a mountain and you never know if you are going to get to the top but you have to keep going.”

While making the film independently has its disadvantages, it also allowed Shamim greater freedom to make the kind of movie that rarely comes from Hollywood.

She said: “Directors are always being judged by the last film that they did.

“It is easy to let these kind of films – which are classic, romantic, unashamedly moving hopefully – to fall by the wayside, but I think there is such a huge audience for it.

“We have been to many, many screenings where the audience has come out really, really moved.”

Not blessed with the kind of budget of a big studio flick, Shamim and Hanan nevertheless managed to attract a stellar cast, which includes Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation actress Rebecca Ferguson and Charles Dance, latterly seen in Game of Thrones.

Even the soundtrack is star-tinged, with chart topper Ella Henderson featuring.

Shamim said: “They are all being offered very big Hollywood movies all the time so it was really on the strength of the story that they came on board so that was wonderful.

“It is fantastic, for validation and it is also very important to me that the story works.

“I’m not a writer or director who does things for effect or to be cool or to do the latest thing. Despite the Falling Snow is quite a classic love story and I wanted it that way, so it was really lovely that people responded to the core of it.”

Such is the filmmaking process that pre-production and post-production both took months to complete but the shoot itself was a tense 36-day affair in Serbia.

Shamim said: “It was quite a brutal time to shoot.

“I’m up from 5am to 10pm and it’s a tough schedule and you just run on adrenaline.”

She added: “When you are filming, everything is so busy and stressed and you are problem solving all the time and you don’t take time to enjoy it.

“I remember a moment where Rebecca and Sam were shooting a scene where Katya and Alexander meet for the first time and it is probably one of the few scenes that came into the film the same way it came out of the book.

“As I director I was thinking ‘wow, that is exactly as I hoped it would be’. I thought ‘just remember this because you don’t get those moments very often’.”

Indeed, Shamim – now a past master at adapting her own work – said she found it important to separate the novel from the film she was trying to make.

She said: “You have to let go of them quite considerably. I tried to ban the novelist and the screenwriter from the set and just think of it as a director.

“When you are directing, you have the input of 200 crewmembers and the cast. If you are too rigid in your view, you are going to cut yourself off from things they might bring to it.

“I like to be very collaborative and open, particularly working with the actors. I think I am an actors’ director and I like to refine the way they work on their characters with them.”

Despite the Falling Snow (12A) is out Friday, April 15

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