British Urban Film Festival

25/04/2013

The BUFF Blog (April 2013)

Those of you joining us for the first time we thank you. We’d also like to welcome in a new audience to the 34th edition of the BUFF Blog. This month’s contribution is guest-written by Anthony Abuah, a previous winner of a Commonwealth Film award and the latest in a succession of British based playwrights who’ve made the transition from stage to screen with his debut feature 'Woolwich Boys' – the closing film of last year’s British Urban Film Festival. Regarded by many as a post-Nollywood movie, it is one of the few films (made in the UK) to have attracted critical acclaim away from its core base of West African audiences in what’s still regarded as the world’s 3rd biggest film industry. The post-Nollywood era is indicative of the growing sea change in the way that films commonly branded as Nollywood have been perceived by global audiences and appreciated in equal measure over the last 18 months.

Follow @buffenterprises @MrAnthonyAbuah @WoolwichBoys @TFTMProductions on twitter…

Unless you're female, making a film is one of the hardest things you could ever do.

Over 10 days, in October 2011, we shot my debut feature film ‘Woolwich Boys’, with unknown actors and a willing crew. We aimed to make a Naija version of (Martin) Scorsese's ‘Goodfellas’ simply because we felt Nigerians are just as interesting as Italian-Americans. We wanted to shoot in a neo-realist, documentary style in pidgin and Yoruba with English subtitles. Essentially, I wanted to make a film that I’d pay money to see.

Until then, I had written and directed a couple of shorts and plays that did pretty well but was yet to see any kind of mainstream success. I knew the industry was more likely to take me seriously if I made a feature - so we did.

I knew I'd be unable to take any time off my full time teaching job to film, so I looked to the school calendar and figured the best window would be to shoot during the October mid term break. This was June 2011. I began to revise a script I’d written from 2009 called ‘Flash 419’ and renamed it Woolwich Boys. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a quick synopsis:

Woolwich Boys focuses on the life of a young man who’s recently moved into the Woolwich area of South East London. He works hard but is unable to maintain himself as a student and is enticed, by his criminal friends, into a life of ‘419’ fraud crime.

It’s important to note that the story is based on real people and set in London nearly a decade ago. 419 is the Nigerian penal code for fraud and the phrase ‘419’ has been made synonymous with Nigerian criminals who defraud everyday people via the internet either through stealing their bank details or requesting large funds being sent to them in return for a much bigger reward. I’m sure most of us have come across these scams. I wrote about this subject because I had seen friends live this life and knew how it worked.

I enlisted my fiancé (now wife) as a co-producer and we began assembling the cast and crew. On cinematography duty was Louis Corallo. He and I made our first film together a few years before and had worked with each other consistently. We went about designing the style of each of the three acts and sourcing a good crew. I then wrote a fourteen page budget proposal to send to potential investors (i.e. friends with cash) but the truth is, I knew nobody. Fortunately for me, my father-in-law saw it and pledged to give us an amount and that was the bulk of our shooting budget. I like the challenge of independent filmmaking and believe a filmmaker’s talent should be judged by what he/she is able to do with little rather than with a lot. It’s incredibly liberating to know your limitations.

The closer we got to the shoot however, the more we realised that we wouldn’t have enough money for post-production. We proceeded anyway and managed to shoot 85% of the script and we were going through 8-10 pages a day. Immediately after we shot, I was back at work with my film, still yet to do edit, but I also needed to line up potential investors. I blitzed social networking, contacted societies, universities and distributors about possibly screening our film for them. You see, we were aware we didn’t have the funds to market it, so we focused on word of mouth from early on.

We had to get people seeing it and talking about it. We heard a lot of NOs but as they say, every cloud has a silver lining. We were invited to our first film festival in Stoke in February 2012, a mere 3 months after filming. Please, don't ever do that to yourself. The film was far from ready and was technically hideous. Despite this, we had a packed house and a good Q&A. Even my old history teacher from school came up. The story was pretty much there, but the technical aspects of the film such as the opening credits and the subtitles weren’t. Despite this, the reviewer still gave us a 6/10 which taught me a massive lesson; Your film is like a newborn baby. Don't be in a rush to show it to everyone, as it might not be ready to be seen. It's okay to show it to small numbers but not at a film festival.

I'm a big fan of Melvin van Peebles and Oscar Micheaux who are guys who loved creative control and believed so much in the films they made. They inspired me to at least try and self-distribute our film in the UK through Tales From The Motherland Productions.

We started hearing back from some of the universities we applied to and began screening the film around the country, much like how an up and coming music artist would. In some cases, we just hired out screening rooms and charged people to come and see the film.

Mr BUFF (Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe) got in touch and selected it as the closing film of BUFF 2012. The week we screened at BUFF, we were nominated for 2 Screen Nation Awards. Our screening was packed and nothing short of a success. We've since screened at the BUFF Spring season this past April and our film was listed in the London Metro’s top 5 films to see in London that same week.

At the time of writing, my wife and I came back from Nigeria a few days ago where Woolwich Boys was nominated for an African Movie Academy Award (AMAA). We didn't win, but we got a free all expenses paid trip and made some amazing contacts. I already knew there was an emerging market out there in Africa – but seeing it was incredible.

I met filmmakers from Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Ghana, Nigerians who weren’t making Nollywood, distributors, festival programmers and other entertainers. I can firmly assure any of you wishing to break into the film industry that Africa is where it’s at. There is a wealth of stories back home which need to be told.

So 18 months on, I’m still not rich, but I've made a feature film - something that a lot of people talk about doing but make excuses. I'm glad I got to do it on my terms and I’m proud of the film we made, despite the financial limitations.

Filmmakers about to shoot an independent feature, try and allocate some funds towards screenings and festival submissions. You need to get your film in front of the right people and especially the right audience. That may be easy to identify in some cases, but in others you may have to endure lots of dismal screenings and rejections. This is harder to take if you've spent all your money.

Having no stars doesn't make your film unable to sell (in fact I prefer the authenticity), you just need to do a lot more work to try and sell it. Ultimately if your film is any good, someone will say so and recommend it. You just need to have faith. I credit my faith in God as the only reason we've even gotten this far as there've been some dark times these last 18 months.

I'm glad I stayed the course and appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit of my story with you. Naturally, I also have to credit my cast and crew, my family and my beautiful missus for believing in me through all this.

Follow me on twitter @MrAnthonyAbuah @WoolwichBoys @TFTMProductions

Woolwich Boys next screens on Friday 26 April 2013 at Oxford Brookes University Student Union. Come down if you're around.

Those of you who would like to submit a script or a film for board consideration for this year’s British Urban Film Festival please visit the BUFF SUBMISSIONS 2013 page at http://www.britishurbanfilmfestival.co.uk

26/03/2013

The BUFF Blog (March 2013)

Pictures courtesy of Sparrow Photography (October 2012).

Happy Easter in advance. This month’s edition of the BUFF Blog is guest-written by actor Jay Brown who can be seen over the next 8 weeks on E4’s new drama ‘Youngers’. The series premiered on Wednesday March 20 with viewing figures of 450,000 viewers. It was also the 5^th most tweeted about programme on TV that day beating ITV’s ‘Coronation Street’ with over 35,000 live tweets during transmission. Follow @JayBrownActor and @buffenterprises on Twitter…

It’s a Thursday morning and the sun has vanished again in London…no surprises there!

An email pings into my inbox: it’s from Emmanuel a.k.a Mr BUFF, asking how I am and, how the promotion for my latest film, The Fall of the Essex Boys, and the new E4 TV series Youngers is coming along. In true Emmanuel fashion he says with one breath, “why not write this month’s blog about what you’ve been up to lately and how it all began?”

So here goes, my first blog and the story of my journey.

Since a young age I was always singing, dancing and acting, in plays, concerts and cabarets. My dad recalls his earliest memory of me at three years old going missing in a Spanish resort, only to be found on stage with the band strumming a little guitar that was designed as a wall decoration.

Film and music were a big part of growing up. I remember my mum always having music on in the house, from The Pet Shop Boys to Eurythmics, Bob Marley to Michael Jackson. The latter was the biggest influence in my life. I would watch endless VHS tapes of Michael, even to the point that my party trick would be the whole dance to Thriller. Looking back, the films I grew up on were ‘The Children’s Golden Age of Cinema’, ‘The Goonies’, ‘Back to the Future’, ‘Flight of the Navigator’, ‘The Princess Bride’, ‘Indiana Jones’, ‘Ghostbusters’, ‘The Karate Kid’ and ‘E.T’. My brother and I would always dress up as the characters, and re-enact the films in our living room.

I started off in a dance group and was in many shows around London including the first Christmas parade on Oxford Street. I then started dancing in music videos and at one point, I was also in a boy group, but my heart was always in acting. Dancing for me was something I loved to do, especially in the Garage club scene where I became known as “Dancing Boy”. When I acted though, I found myself taking on a different state of expression. Dance is ever so much an expression of oneself, but in acting you’re living the life of someone else, and telling their story. My first professional acting credit came pretty late, I was 21.

My younger brother (Duran) was living in the States, and his agent at the time called our house to confirm a casting he had for a short film. As he was out of the country he couldn’t attend, but without hesitation I jumped at the chance, and filled his place. Little did I know that this casting would change everything.

The short film was Tube Poker, a screenplay about playing poker on the London Underground but with people instead of cards. People of different age range represented different card values. I read the script in the waiting room and it really appealed to me with its edgy dialogue and a fantasy story, which could actually be real. My sight reading at the time wasn’t good and I stumbled over the script in the audition. Simon Levene (the director) could see I was having trouble and asked me to cast aside the script and that we were going to do some improvisation instead. Simon asked me a question and I, in character answered; he asked a second; then for the next eight minutes I went on a tirade as the character until the cameraman sheepishly put his hand up and said he ran out of tape ‘minutes ago’. I took this as a good point to exit; I shook hands and thanked them for their time. That evening I received the call that I had been cast in the film; not only that, but that they had changed the ethnicity and I was now the lead character. To say I was over the moon would be an understatement. Tube Poker went on to win many film festival awards and received global acclaim.

In 2007 I met Rikki Beadle-Blair, the multi-talented man who started Noel Clarke’s career and many others. I saw a play he directed and knew from the moment I met this high energy, blonde dreadlocked man, I had to work with him. I started going to the Actors Centre, and did classes with Rikki to learn more and to work under his guidance. One day I received a call from Rikki to meet him at BAFTA for lunch. I was gobsmacked. Not only was I going to BAFTA, but mainly Rikki was asking me to come and talk about a play that he was planning to write. We had a long chat and at the end he offered me to join the production of Screwface. I knew this was going to be special as Rikki casts his actors first and then writes the characters tailored around them.

Anyone who has been part of character development from the beginning will know how special this is. While we were rehearsing forScrewface, Rikki cast me in his second play which was part of the trilogy of plays to be performed in the one week run. This was my first professional theatre experience and I did, not one, but two plays in the same week. Acting on stage is totally different from acting in front of camera. You have to listen so much more, not only to your fellow actors, which is a given, but to the audience. For instance, when the audience laugh in a play I’ve seen many actors just carry on with their lines which get drowned out. Letting the audience settle for you to carry on is a must as every word is important to the story you’re telling. It all comes down to timing as you can be directed where to pause but it is very much down to the actor to learn and listen. Every night is different so be prepared for the unexpected. I personally feel every actor should be honed with the skills to act for stage and screen. They are two different disciplines and should both be respected and worked on together in equal measure.

I’ve since collaborated many times with Rikki over the years, and regard him as a close friend and an inspiring role model.

Fast forward to The Hunters, the big budget feature film, which I was cast as an American, my first role as a non-Brit. I played one of the hunters alongside Steven Waddington (Last of the Mohicans), Tony Becker and Terence Knox (Tour of Duty) and Dianna Agron (Glee) who played the love interest.

To be working, watching and learning alongside such a high calibre of actors was an amazing experience. Practically the whole film was shot in a disused fort in beautiful Metz, north-east France. It was directed and produced by two young French guys who had never made a feature film before – they pulled it off big time. When the film was released in the States (2011), it was one of the fastest selling films during the Christmas period.

The same year The Hunters was filmed, I went to Los Angeles, the Mecca of the film industry. I was in town for the screening of FIT at the Directors Guild of America. Anyone who knows of the DGA on Sunset Boulevard will know what an incredible and historic venue this is. To have a little independent UK Film screened at such a prestigious building was a triumph for all UK film and, to be a part of that was just breathtaking. Standing on the stage at the end with the rest of the cast and Rikki, who directed the film, and seeing the standing ovation of a sell out crowd – I will treasure that forever. FIT follows six characters studying dance and drama at college and how they cope with growing up and finding where they fit socially. The film tackles bullying on all fronts, especially homophobic bullying in schools. The UK government now use the film as an anti-bullying educational tool in every school in England, Wales and Scotland.

My time in LA really opened my eyes to the industry as a whole. LA works totally different, for one, there are so many more job opportunities than the UK. Of course this is because they have a much bigger industry with more production studios, but financially they have more of an infrastructure than we do. The main thing I took away was how upfront American industry people are. This is something I loved, as I believe honesty is the only way to move forward.

In LA the US creatives I came into contact with reinforced my exact thoughts; creatives should get paid to create, simple. You wouldn’t ask a plumber to come and fix your pipes and not pay him, ‘Hey, I’ll tell my friends about you’. Actors should be treated with the same respect. You want an actor to work on your production, pay him/her for their skill that they’re bringing. Los Angeles is definitely somewhere I see myself working and believe there is work for me; it’s now all about timing…

Back to good old Blighty!

Lately I’ve wrapped on three productions. The Fall of the Essex Boys, now on DVD, and the other two soon to be shown, Youngers (at the time of writing) and Big Bad World.

But this March it’s all about Youngers, Big Talk and E4’s brand new dramedy TV series which I play Bangs. Bangs is the older protective brother of Jodie, who is involved with the MC of the show. The series follows best friends Jay and Yemi’s journey, becoming the next big thing in the music industry. On the way they meet Davina, and become a threesome known as “The Youngers”. It has been billed as ‘The Inbetweeners’ meets ‘Skins’, by the press. The script (written by Levi Addai) is witty, gritty and truly brilliant. The series isn’t sold on sex, drugs and young people up to mischief, but on friendship, chasing dreams, and growing into adulthood. The series has no swearing, which is brow raising, yet still stays real to its youth surroundings. Nothing this exciting has come out of Peckham since ‘Desmond’s’.

What’s next? Well I’m back in the audition pool with everyone else, but I’m also producing. A friend and I have a production company together and we’re creating our own scripts and searching for scripts. I feel that going into different fields in the business is a natural progression, but my first love and passion will always be acting.

I’ll leave you with two key things I tell every actor when asked if I have any advice:

‘Know your worth’ and ‘Make the dream a reality’

Stay up to date with Jay by going to his website:http://www.jaybrown.tv

Follow him on Twitter: @JayBrownActor

04/03/2013

Film Editor of Metro joins board of British Urban Film Festival

For immediate release:

BUFF Enterprises, the home of urban film coverage in the UK, has today announced the appointment of Larushka Ivan-Zadeh to its’ growing board of members as it prepares for its’ inaugural Spring Season of film programming leading up to this year’s 8th British Urban Film Festival in September. Ivan-Zadeh is the Film Editor of Metro, the national free newspaper with a daily readership of 3.5million. She also is a regular film expert on Sky News and BBC Radios 4, 6Music and The World Service. Prior to joining Metro full time in 2006 she worked freelance as their TV Critic whilst writing about film for the likes of Time Out, The Guardian and co-authored The Rough Guide To Cult Movies.

She has served on numerous film award juries including the BAFTA Rising Star Award, the Bird’s Eye View Film Festival, Rushes Soho Shorts and The Canary Wharf Short Film Festival.

The appointment is the latest in a series of announcements being made by the organization who have recently confirmed new media partnerships with the online broadcaster Grime Daily (GRM Daily), Shooting People and the British Blacklist.

It has also been confirmed that BUFF Enterprises has secured an exclusive screening of the highly anticipated comedy drama ‘It’s a Lot’, the debut feature from writer/actor/director Femi Oyeniran who came to prominence in movies such as ‘Kidulthood’, ‘Adulthood’ and ‘Anuvahood’.

Full details about the box office screening – part of the line-up of 20 films overall to be shown on Grime Daily, Community Channel and Genesis Cinema – will be released in mid-March.

Ends

Filmmakers who would like to submit a script or a film for board consideration for this year’s British Urban Film Festival please visit the BUFF SUBMISSIONS 2013 page at http://www.britishurbanfilmfestival.co.uk

23/02/2013

The BUFF Blog (February 2013)

Happy February one and all. This month’s edition of the BUFF Blog is guest-written by award-winning writer/director Stephen Lloyd Jackson whose film ‘David is Dying’ premiered on the opening night of the 2011 British Urban Film Festival. The film continues to win awards in the UK and across the globe, most recently on February 17 when Lonyo Engele triumphed in the best male performance in film category at the 2013 Screen Nation film and television awards. Follow @davidisdying @iamsljackson and @buffenterprises on Twitter…

Stephen Lloyd Jackson

Auteur

February 2013 BUFF BLOG

The making of ‘David Is Dying’

It’s a rainy Friday night and I’m in West London. To be more precise, I’m in Aroma, a Chinese buffet joint in Shepherds Bush Green. I’m with Mr BUFF himself, Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe.

I haven’t seen Emmanuel for nearly a year and then some and it was good to see him wearing his signature smile. We got the food in and it was great that we didn’t start talking shop until we were well on the way with our second helpings.

After discussing BUFF’s next tour of duty at the Genesis cinema in East London this coming Spring (which includes the encore screening of multi award winning ‘David Is Dying’ [‘DID’]), we went on to talk more in depth about the state of the UK film industry and other film matters. That’s when Emmanuel kindly asked if I would write the February BUFF Blog. I said it would be a pleasure.

In 2010 I founded SAR Productions as a vehicle to produce a trilogy of intense dramatic movies. The trilogy will mainly focus on relationship themes such as sex, race, love, infidelity and power. Examining human stories, which resonate and transcend through to all cultures and races.The trilogy will particularly focus on characters from the Afro/Caribbean diaspora living and working in London.

Several years prior, I completed my debut feature film entitled ‘Rulers and Dealers’. It was a very ambitious project, shot on 35mm film stock. After a year or so, ‘Rulers’ got picked up and went straight to DVD. The distributors went bust and I have since deleted it from the market with a view to re-edit and release it sometime in the near future.

For the next few years, post ‘Rulers’, I knuckled down and wrote about six movie scripts.

I then decided to try and get one of them made. This was to be quite a big budget, psychological, action thriller.

However, after a lot of meetings and negotiations with international producers and financiers which seemed to be going around in circles, plus the onslaught of the mighty global recession in 2008/9, I decided to ditch the project.

At the time, I felt that I had wasted four years chasing ghosts. I soon realised that it was all part and parcel of the film-making process. From time to time one will drop the ball and make mistakes, or things will go pear shaped through no fault of your own.

I contemplated my next move. I thought there must be another way around the gatekeepers and financiers. So I went back to the drawing board and decided to produce films where I wouldn’t have to ask anybody for finance or rely on any “big name” actor to carry my movies.

I would deliver totally independent movies, using passionate crew members, the most talented cast I can find and the latest technology. I would write scripts that are powerful, daring, insightful, and connect with audiences throughout the world on different levels.

Around that time, I was in discussions with a producer called Andy Mundy-Castle. We were having talks about shooting a feature documentary about couples and their relationships. After many meetings and discussions we decided not to go ahead with the project. But I liked his [AMC] passion and methodical approach to things. So I told him about another project I had been working on. It was a dark intense story about a guy who frequently sleeps with different women and goes on to contract HIV. The lead character would be possessive and controlling over his fiancée. It was also based on a script/treatment I worked on a few years prior entitled ‘The Pregnant Predator’.

AMC read it and showed a lot of interest in the project. So I brought him on board. I completed the screenplay and entitled it ‘Romeo Is Dying’. I later changed the title name to ‘David Is Dying’. AMC and I will produce the picture, and I would direct it.

Long story short, we put in place all the relevant pieces of the building blocks to get the pre-production process started. I hired a cinematographer, Olympia Mytilinaiou, from Athens. I met her about five years prior while cutting a movie there. She had a lot of experience of shooting intense human stories and her work was very good too. Whilst there, she showed me around some interesting parts of the city and we spoke a lot about working together on my next picture.

As well as other crew members, I recruited Sheila Nortley. Sheila had already produced a few shorts and is a multi-talented filmmaker, one to look out for. She was one of the last crew members to come on board. We needed a production manager and I was determined to bring on another female. Part of the ‘SAR’ philosophy, which is integral to its ethos, is to try and incorporate an international flavour of crew members, with females both in front of and behind the camera.

Incidentally, 90% of the ‘head of departments’ on ‘DID’ were female.

A few weeks before principal photography, we were still trying to get the main players for ‘DID’. We had seen over 150 actors. There were times when we thought we had the lead sewn down, but for one reason or another, it didn’t work out.

At an audition we held in Brixton, South West London, we had about 30 actors there for a reading. I saw a couple of actors that I liked, but nobody that really did it for me. I was very precise in my thinking of what ‘David’ (lead character) should look like and what attitude he should convey. And add to that, what should ‘Carla’ (second lead character) be like?

Nevertheless, we were auditioning all morning and after lunch, began seeing more actors. Then the second actor to come through the door was this very confident, clean-cut guy, with a street edge but Lonyo Engele also had a professional look to him.

AMC later told me that Lonyo was a major UK garage star. I didn’t know that at the time cause I wasn’t a big UK garage fan. But when I made enquiries about his music career, everybody knew of him. What planet was I on? ‘Summer of Love’ was a massive hit in the UK. I went on to watch all his music videos on You Tube and other media stuff he was involved in. Put all that to one side, what I did know was that this guy awoke my spirit. He sure can act. He’s what I was waiting for. And apparently, Lonyo only came down to the audition to drop off an actress friend of his. In the audition, I thought Lonyo breathed life into the ‘David’ character and everything was going along just fine. He had a natural understanding of the character’s beat and arc.

The sun was beginning to shine and my day was getting brighter. Then from out of the blue, Lonyo’s mobile phone begins to ring. A couple of the production crew looked at me nervously, (Houston, do we have a problem? What now? REALLY!?). They were probably anticipating me putting a halt to proceedings. But I gave them a quick look and a quick shake of my head to indicate to them to carry on filming. I’m an old dog at these auditions and nothing surprises me. I wanted to see where we were heading with this. And in fine style, while in improv with his fellow female actor, Lonyo answered the phone in character, in the character of ‘David’. This was an organised effort on Lonyo’s part for him to stand out in the audition. And it worked.

I had no hesitation signing up Lonyo. I knew 100% that he was our man for the job. But like everything in this film game, nothing’s for sure. You can’t take anything for granted. I knew the scale and intensity of the ‘David’ character, so I had to make sure he [Lonyo] wanted it as much as I wanted him and that he had the mind set for the gig. Lonyo was invited to an informal meeting at the SAR office in Tooting, South London where he, AMC and myself chatted about the character, the film and general light hearted man stuff, you know football and music, etcetera, etcetera.

The meet went well. I then hooked up with Lonyo a short time after that in west London for a coffee and chat about the character. Although I was still sure that he was the man for the job, I knew it would be important for him to seal it for me. Why? Because it was a tough and special role, one that commanded and demanded nothing short of 100% commitment and focus.

So I told him, if he takes this gig and gives it a hundred and fifty percent, there’s no other role out there that he won’t be able to do. With that said, Lonyo looked me straight in the eyes and said that I can rely on him. I’ll give my all, one hundred and fifty percent.

As a director, that’s all you need, to hear and “feel” from your actors, especially your lead players. You just need to know that they can trust you and that they know you’ve got their back and once that bond is sealed between artist and director, you are half way there on the journey to creating something quite magical.

A year later Lonyo won the grand jury prize for ‘best male actor’ at the 15th American Black Film Festival in South Beach, Miami. And only this month, Lonyo scooped the ‘Best male performance in film’ award at the 2012/13 Screen Nation Film & TV Awards.

The other main cast members were still to be cast. I already had my son, Stephen Samuel Jackson Jnr on board six months prior. He was already enrolled into acting classes before I even thought about using him for the movie. I cleared it with him and his mother and got him an acting coach to particularly work on the character of ‘Young David’. He done a splendid job and I could not have worked with a more focused and calm child actor.

After auditioning nearly sixty or seventy female actors for the part of David’s fiancée ‘Carla’, we finally struck gold. On a summer’s Thursday afternoon, AMC and myself were conducting auditions in Tooting. Lonyo was also there too to read with the actresses. We just had three or maybe four female actors to see. A couple of them were ‘call backs’.

Nevertheless, after the second or third actress, in walks this petite young actress. Isaura Barbe´-Brown read with Lonyo. She actually really slapped him in the face, part of a scene that I asked them to do. Apparently, they both instigated the slap whilst I was momentarily out the room.

After reviewing the audition rushes a few days later, I was impressed by her performance and the ‘on screen’ chemistry between them. I saw something dynamic, something special about them both fronting the movie. So AMC and myself met up with Isaura at the Soho Hotel for drinks and chitchat. She was humble and professional. I knew that she was our gal for the job. So a few days later we signed her to the picture.

I then realised that we needed someone to play ‘Roxanne’, David’s mother. Originally, that was the main role that Isaura was meant to read for. So we summoned another meeting with her in Soho. She didn’t have a clue what I wanted to see her about and seemed rather apprehensive. So I reassured her that everything’s okay, but I would like to know if she wanted to play David’s mother as well. Isaura was happy to accept both roles and I was confident that she had the acting range and ability to do it. So I signed her on for that role too. A year later, Isaura went on to win best female actress at the Los Angeles International New Wave Film Festival for her two roles in ‘David Is Dying’.

One of the final main cast members to come on board was Brigitte Millar. We actually saw her months prior in one of the first auditions. She was to play the ice cold psychiatrist ‘Amelia Holland’. Brigitte was such a pro to work with. She had about four straight days of shooting her scenes. A year later, Brigitte won best female support actor at the Los Angeles International New Wave Film Festival. I also won best screenplay at the same festival and the film also picked up best film score too.

After shooting ‘David Is Dying’ I had a small break. I hadn’t seen any of the rushes as yet and wasn’t looking forward to doing so until I got the film out of my head. I needed fresh eyes to move on with it. I recruited Italian editor and photographer Francisco Caradonna to cut the picture. For the next six months we worked tirelessly on it. The original running time was just over two hours. Too long! Way too long. So we cut 35 minutes. I then got the movie graded and the sound fixed. Film complete, job done.

The next step was to get the movie into international film festivals. The 15th American Black Film Festival (ABFF 2011) is where ‘DID’ had its official international premier screening. This festival was on the top of my hit list. I heard a lot of good things about it. ‘DID’ got accepted and Lonyo and myself flew out to South Beach, Miami to represent the movie. The Americans loved the movie, especially Lonyo and his character ‘David’. The festival lived up to all expectations and more. As well as some cool movies, the parties were doing it too, along with the food, the beach and the beautiful weather.

So, on awards night, ‘DID’ won two awards. The Grand Jury Prize for best male actor (for Lonyo) and Grand Jury Prize for best director (for myself). This was a first in the 15-year history of the American Black Film festival to present two major film awards to a UK feature film.

After the success we had at the ABFF, ‘DID’ went on to screen at a further 18 international film festivals and scooped a further six film awards and I was presented with a ‘Focus On Filmmakers Honour’ at the 6th Cleveland International Film Festival.

In September 2011, Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe invited ‘DID’ to open the British Urban Film Festival. This was ‘DID’s UK premiere screening. By this time, ‘DID’ had such a buzz behind it that it had to be screened over two days at the BUFF film festival in central London.

The night was crazy. A large turn – out. The film was well received and was the first independent feature of its’ kind to hit the UK in years; “No ‘N’WORD, NO GUNS &NO GANGSTERS!” In my humble opinion, this was a relief for cinephiles who want to watch movies with leading roles for Afro Caribbean British actors.

The BUFF screening was important too. It opened a lot of doors for ‘DID’ in the UK and beyond. Lonyo went on to sign for a top actor’s agency, ‘The Identity Agency Group’ (IAG) off the back of that screening.

On the 4th of July 2012, ‘DID’ was released on DVD on Amazon. I chose to release it independently so SAR Productions could have total control over its longevity in the marketplace and enable a maximum return to plough back into making more movies of this nature.

‘David Is Dying’ is also available to purchase on DVD from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com and is also available to download or stream from the all-new Amazon Instant Video player.

Download ‘David Is Dying’: http://www.amazon.com/David-Is-Dying/dp/B00B6XXJ3K/ref=sr_1_4?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1359500152&sr=1-4&keywords=david+is+dying+-

Purchase ‘David Is Dying’ DVD:http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00A21TLW0

WATCH TRAILER:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGWyfau_yIw&feature=channel

We also intend to launch a movie distribution channel in a few months time where ‘DID’ and other independent movies, short and feature length will be available to purchase.

Last, but not least. SAR Productions are in the second phase of editing their second feature film from the ‘Sex And Race’ trilogy, entitled: ‘SABLE FABLE’. The film is a beautiful story exploring the complexities of love, sex, race and hypocrisy through different couples whose lives intertwine through a series of unfortunate events. Due to be completed this summer.