It’s been seven years since Angela Pell’s last film and the follow-up, a short drama for Sky Arts, couldn’t be more different.

Where 2006’s Snow Cake was an indie flick that told the story of the relationship between an autistic woman (played by Sigourney Weaver) and a man traumatised by a car accident (Alan Rickman), Gifted is a supernatural tale of a man with a mysterious healing power.

Commissioned as part of Sky Arts’ Playhouse Presents… series and directed by Snow Cake’s Marc Evans, Welsh actor Rhys Ifans stars as the secluded outsider whose mundane existence is shaken up when a woman called Mona arrives in his life, encouraging him to accept and embrace his strange ability.

“It’s very different to what I usually write,” says Pell, who lives in Roedean.

“Usually I write because I want to say something but this is more plot-driven.

“It’s a stylised, self-sacrifice story with a Tales Of The Unexpected-style twist. I suppose it’s rather like the Jesus story…although I’m not religious so I’m not entirely sure where it’s come from!”

The drama had to be condensed down to just over 20 minutes when Pell had envisaged it as a film and it has ended up being quite different from what she had originally imagined.

“But that’s what makes this sort of work interesting. You have this story in your head and then someone else takes it on and a load of people add their magic and it becomes this thing that doesn’t actually feel that much to do with you.

“I was so glad to work with Marc again and Rhys Ifans is just phenomenal. It was brilliant to watch him in action.

The poor man had to cry, have sex, sing and kind of greet death – all in 22 minutes.

He blew everyone away.”

Pell has been writing since she was at secondary school – “I found a script I wrote when I was around 13 the other day,”

she laughs. “It was dreadful, all about gangsters and molls.

I think I was trying to rewrite Bugsy Malone.” But it wasn’t until Snow Cake that she enjoyed professional success.

It’s been another long wait until Gifted. “I keep saying I’m going to give up writing… and then something happens to give me hope again. You don’t really choose to be a writer anyway. It’s a cliché but it really does choose you and I don’t feel I have a choice but to keep going.”

Snow Cake was inspired by her son Johnny, 15, who has autism. Pell wanted to shed some light on the condition which affects Johnny’s ability to communicate, interact socially and play.

Although awareness of the condition is increasing, there is a still a long way to go in changing attitudes and understanding, she says.

“There’s a saying that when you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism and I think that’s very true. Each person with autism is so very different that there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach.”

She and husband Henry Normal, the successful comedy producer behind TV hits including The Royle Family and Gavin And Stacey, became patrons of Brighton charity Amaze four years ago, which helps support parents of children with special needs.

“I feel very privileged to be associated with such a brilliant organisation. I’ve done a few of the courses they run and that’s when you really meet the people they help first-hand and see what good work they do.

“I’ve got to the stage now where I don’t only accept Johnny’s autism but I embrace it with the idea that this is where we are now, let’s have the best time we can have.”

*Gifted is on Sky Arts 1HD at 9.30pm on Thursday. To find out more about Amaze, visit www.amazebrighton.org.uk