Claim: Tom Felton acted in Belle.

Belle is a 2013 British period drama film directed by Amma Asante , written by Misan Sagay and produced by Damian Jones . It stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw , Tom Wilkinson , Miranda Richardson , Penelope Wilton , Sam Reid , Matthew Goode , Emily Watson , Sarah Gadon , Tom Felton and James Norton .   The film is inspired by the 1779 painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle beside her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray , at Kenwood House , which was commissioned by their great-uncle , William Murray , 1st Earl of Mansfield , then Lord Chief Justice of England . Very little is known about the life of Dido Belle , who was born in the West Indies and was the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of Mansfield 's nephew . She is found living in poverty by her father and entrusted to the care of Mansfield and his wife . The fictional film centres on Dido 's relationship with an aspiring lawyer ; it is set at a time of legal significance , as a court case is heard on what became known as the Zong massacre , when slaves were thrown overboard from a slave ship and the owner filed with his insurance company for the losses . Lord Mansfield rules on this case in England 's Court of King 's Bench in 1786 , in a decision seen to contribute to the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 .