BOB GELDOF's Live Aid Story to Become a Film

MUSIC NEWS - The visionary Irish rocker, (Sir) Bob Geldof and his worldwide Live Aid concert to raise money to help in the famine relief efforst for Ethiopia is being made into a TV film, the BBC announced on Wednesday.   The 1985 concert event, assembled by Geldof and UK music promoter Harvey Goldsmith, found an audience of an estimated 1.5 billion people and helped raise the public and political awareness of Africans impacted by the poverty, starvation and disease.

Filming for the 90 minute teleplay has already started in Dublin.   "When Harvey met Bob," will follow the story from the day Geldof (of the Boomtown Rats band) got home to find his girlfriend at the time, Paula Yates holding their baby and crying while she watched television footage from feeding camps in Eritrea.

Domhnall Gleeson, star of the upcoming seventh Harry Potter film, is in the project as Geldof and shows Sir Bob using his persuasive tactics to get the A list of rock stars donate their names and talents at no charge for the Band Aid charity Christmas record "Do they know it's Christmas?"

But, a trip to Ethiopia to make sure that the proceeds from the record sales (millions of copies), reached the starving population that Geldof realized more was needed to be done, and Live Aid was born. He then teamed up with Goldsmith to organizea huge televised international charity concert, held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia, PA.

"We were inspired by this story because it has, at its heart, a fantastic relationship that is funny, moving and born out of the real drama of trying to achieve something huge and unprecedented," said Kate Triggs of Great Meadow Productions, producers of the film.

The film will air to mark the 25th anniversary of the concert on BBC 2 and Ireland's RTE in the autumn of 2010.  No word on airings in other nations, or on a DVD and Blu Ray releas.