A FILM that left Brontë fans speechless during its Haworth premiere last summer is to be screened on TV.

Channel 4 will show Balls, the Wuthering Heights-inspired short film by social activist and model Lily Cole, on December 29.

Cole created the eight-minute movie in her role as the Brontë Society’s creative partner during the 200th anniversary year of Emily Brontë”s birth.

In focusing on Wuthering Heights anti-hero Heathcliff, a foundling, she also teamed up with the Foundling Museum in London.

She explored the mid-19th century links between London’s Foundling Hospital and Emily’s novel, in which heroine Catherine Earnshaw’s father adopts young Heathcliff after finding him on the streets of Liverpool.

Balls was premiered in Haworth during a special weekend to celebrate Emily’s 200th birthday, and received an awestruck reaction from literary enthusiasts.

At the time, the museum’s head of communications Rebecca Yorke said: “Balls is a very moving film, short and hard-hitting. While it was playing you could hear a pin drop.”

Cole’s film was screened for visitors to the museum until the beginning of December, along with a display of objects from the Foundling Museum Collection.

In late 2017 the Brontë Society announced Lily Cole as one of its high-profile creative partners for this year, to help celebrate the bicentennial of Emily Brontë’s birth.

Cole, a supermodel, actress and social entrepreneur, was named alongside folk group The Unthanks, poet Patience Agbabi and artist Kate Whiteford, who would each focus on a different aspect of Emily’s character and work.

At the time, Cole said she had long been fascinated by Wuthering Heights and its “enigmatic” writer, adding: “The fact that Emily had to change her name – to Ellis Bell – in order to publish the novel intrigues and inspires me.”

Although Cole’s efforts for 2018 were to focus on weighty subjects like foundlings, gender politics and women’s rights, her inclusion divided Brontë Society members with one, Brontë biographer Nick Holland, announcing he would resign at the “disgraceful” decision.

Cole considered following Emily’s lead and making Balls under a pseudonym, but her film went on to receive critical acclaim.

David Wilson, director Bradford City of Film, this week said Balls was among several TV and film projects that during 2018 had received significant support from Bradford Film Office.

He said: “Once again Bradford has proved its film friendly credentials with a significant number of UK TV dramas and some very prominent feature films choosing to use locations in the city..

“We continue to win the confidence and the friendship of some of the major producers and directors along with the crews who make magic happen on our screens.

“With a good number of enquiries for next year already under way and international collaborations in development, we have much to celebrate in 2019, the 10th anniversary of Bradford as a UNESCO City of Film”.