Emin makes her first film

It's Brit Art the Movie. In what looks like the ultimate vanity project, Tracey Emin is to write and direct a film. The subject will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with her art. It will be the life and work of Tracey Emin.

The most familiar and outrageous artist on the contemporary scene is in Cannes this week to try to raise finance for the movie.

The project is not solely Emin's idea. She was approached by the producer Andrew Eaton and the director Michael Winterbottom to make the film with their company, Revolution Films. The pair are also in Cannes with their latest movie, 24 Hour Party People, about the birth of Factory Records and the Manchester club scene, starring Steve Coogan. That film is in competition for the Palme d'Or.

But although Winterbottom is one of Britain's most acclaimed young directors, it is Emin, not he, who will direct the movie and write the script. Eaton and Winterbottom will be involved in the production of the film and will help to raise the money. Their names will open many more doors in Cannes than hers. Emin was at a party at the weekend thrown by Eaton and Winterbottom. She said she was very excited about the project and intended to follow the young actress who will play her with a camera around the seaside town of Margate, where Emin grew up. No actress has yet been cast for the role.

Emin added that she wanted to put on film some of the lasting memories of her childhood. "The sunsets in Margate were fantastic," she said.

But the sunsets will play a small part in a story that has more than its fair share of drama. Emin has said she was raped as a 13-year-old and the film is likely to be as candid about her personal life as her artworks.

They include a tent embroidered with the names of everyone she has ever slept with, a photograph of her naked in a beach hut and her unmade bed, which was exhibited for the Turner prize and made it on to the shortlist.

Mr Eaton said: "We went to Tracey with the idea and she said she had already thought of making a feature-length film.

"Like all her work, the film will deal with her own personal life. It will focus on her childhood growing up in Margate. All we need to do is raise the finance and then we can start casting for a young actress to play the part."

Emin intends to shoot the low-budget film over a period of nine months in and around Margate. Alongside Damien Hirst, she is the most high- profile figure among the group still referred to as the Young British Artists and has many admirers.

But she also has high-profile detractors. Ivan Massow, the former chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, said of her: "Anyone who has met Emin knows she couldn't think her way out of a paper bag." Emin was appalled and upset by the remark and Mr Massow was forced to resign shortly after making his adverse comments about both her in particular and conceptualist art in general.