Billy Elliot is a 2000 British dance drama film about a boy becoming a professional ballet dancer, set in north-eastern England during the 1984–85 coal miners' strike. It was produced by Greg Brenman and Jon Finn, music composed by Stephen Warbeck, co-produced by BBC Films, Tiger Aspect Pictures and Working Title Films, distributed by Universal Pictures and Focus Features, written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Daldry. The film stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, an aspiring dancer dealing with the negative stereotype of the male ballet dancer, Gary Lewis as his coal miner father, Jamie Draven as Billy's bullying older brother, and Julie Walters as his ballet teacher. In 2001, author Melvin Burgess was commissioned to write the novelisation of the film based on Lee Hall's screenpla