How to Build a Girl will star Beanie Feldstein (Lady Bird, Bad Neighbours 2) alongside Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones), Paddy Considine (Journeyman, Pride) and Sarah Solemani (Bridget Jones's Baby, Him & Her) as well as a host of other British stars.

The semi-autobiographical novel, set in 1993, documents the life of a bright, fat, funny working class sixteen year old girl as she escapes her overcrowded house in Wolverhampton and heads to the big smoke – London. Seeking to change her name and find out who she is How to Build a Girl has become a manual for breaking the rules and a handbook for teenage outcasts everywhere.

The film will be directed by critically acclaimed British director Coky Giedroyc, who was nominated for both an Emmy and a Bafta for the BBC Drama The Virgin Queen. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for her work on The Hour, written by Abi Morgan and starring Dominic West, Ben Whishaw and Romola Garai.

Writer Caitlin Moran grew up on a council estate in Wolverhampton. She left school at eleven and, aged twelve won the Dillon’s essay competition. At fifteen she wrote her first novel, The Chronicles of Narmo, which won the Observer’s Young Reporter award. By age seventeen, she was writing for the Observer and the Guardian and by eighteen she was given her own column in the Times, which she still holds today. Moran is no stranger to writing semi-autobiography, she recently penned the sitcom Raised by Wolves which ran for two series on Channel 4. 

Film4 developed the project from the outset with Monumental Pictures and are co-financing the production with Tango. 

The shoot will take place at various sites around the UK between July and August.