DERBYSHIRE film director Nick Whitfield's feature debut, Skeletons, is one of the highlights of what's looking like a busy year for East Midlands screen agency EM Media.

Skeletons premiered last week at the Rotterdam Film Festival.

Whitfield's Derbyshire-made movie develops themes and characters first explored in his short film of the same name, focusing on two travelling salesmen in the business of cleaning skeletons out of people's closets. It was filmed on location in and around Matlock Bath last summer.

Skeletons is part of a busy slate of regional films being financed by EM Media.

Wrapping its Australia shoot at the end of January was Oranges and Sunshine, the debut feature from director Jim Loach. Oranges and Sunshine stars Oscar-nominated actress Emily Watson and tells the true story of Nottingham social worker Margaret Humphreys, who uncovered the scandal of forced migration of children from the UK. East Midlands shooting, including some in Derbyshire, took place last year.

Later this month, Samantha Morton's directorial debut, The Unloved, broadcast last year on Channel 4, will be released in selected UK cinemas. The Unloved gives an intimate child's eye view of life in a children's home and stars Robert Carlyle and Susan Lynch alongside the two young leads – Molly Windsor as Lucy and Derby's Lauren Socha as Lauren – who were cast after a series of open auditions held across schools, drama groups and at The Television Workshop (which Morton herself attended at 12).

On February 26, Xiaolu Guo's She, A Chinese, winner of the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival 2009, is due to be released in the UK. She, A Chinese is the sixth film from EM Media's investment in the Warp X digital studio and tells the story of Mei, a young Chinese woman, who leaves her monotonous village life behind.

Spring will see the release of the next film on the EM Media slate – Karl Golden's Pelican Blood. Based on the cult novel, Pelican Blood is set in the world of obsessive bird-spotters, or twitchers, as they are known. The film follows Nikko (Harry Treadaway – who also starred in the EM Media co-financed Control and Brothers of the Head), a young man living in London who throws himself into bird-spotting as a way of getting over the break up of his relationship with Stevie (Emma Booth). The film, shot in Leicestershire and Nottingham, will be out around Easter. Daily Mail critic Baz Bamigboye has described it as a "marvellously engrossing love story" which is "daring and unconventional, yet it has a cool vibe to it".

In April, A Boy Called Dad will be released. It tells the story of Robbie – a 14-year-old boy who has just become a father. Abandoned by his own dad, Robbie snatches his baby son and goes on the run. An emotionally stirring coming-of-age drama about fatherhood, it marks the acting debut of Kyle Ward and the feature film debut of award-winning director Brian Percival, and producers Michael Knowles and Stacey Murray of Derbyshire-based production company, Made Up North Productions.

Also out in April is Crying With Laughter, which, although filmed in Scotland, was co-financed by EM Media, produced by Wellington Films and released by Britfilms TV – all based in Nottingham.

As well as EM Media-financed films there's a trio of movies due out in 2010 that were made in Derbyshire.

Wolfman, part filmed at Chatsworth House, is released across the UK this week.

Ridley Scott's eagerly-anticipated Robin Hood, shot in Dovedale, Derbyshire, is out on May 14

Also look out for the release of Mike Leigh's as-yet-untitled film, which was shot on location in Derby during October.