Losing Grace
Losing Grace is a gripping short film thriller that keeps audiences guessing and leaves them with their hearts in their throats. Grace is forced to flee with her mother Louise, from her abusive father, John, only to be tracked down with dire consequences.
Project
Losing Grace
Current Status
We had an awesome campaign here on Greenlit and hit out target of 10k. We are also delighted to announce that we were awarded a futher 5k from Arts Council Isle of Man. We are still fundraising for this film. We have another 15k - 20k to raise. We have some other irons in the fire that we are waiting to hear back from, but we still need to spread the word and get support for this project. So please share and pledge if you haven't already.
The Story
Losing Grace is a gripping short film thriller that keeps audiences guessing and leaves them with their hearts in their throats. Grace is forced to flee with her mother Louise, from her abusive father, John, only to be tracked down with dire consequences.
Louise has suffered years of psychological abuse at the hands of John. But getting help has proven difficult. Feeling her own sanity fraying, and failing to convince anyone that her charming and respectable husband is the culprit, she is left with no alternative but to run where he can’t find her or their daughter Grace. Desperate to protect Grace she forces her to abandon her life and go on the run. With no access to money and support, Louise is desperate. But Grace is saddled with a fragile mother for whom she feels responsible, even when she can’t see the reasons for her decisions. Grace longs to be normal and hang out with friends, but her mother’s unstable state takes its toll.
This is a short film, 12 minutes, and like all great short films, subtlety is key. Louise's emotions are heightened and what is true and what is not, teeters on the edge. We want to bring this world of fear to the audiences, to put them inside the grey area of reality - how things may appear and how things may feel when one is inside them. How do we know when someone is ever telling us the truth?
Themes
Losing Grace is an important story to tell that is woefully current. With the last 12 years of austerity, cuts to vital services have left many victims of domestic violence vulnerable and in danger. Refuges have had there funding slashed, with dire consequences. We want to make a film that has wide reach and can help in some way to raise awareness – if only to step inside the emotional world of the abused. With the film travelling to festivals, the discussion around these issues will be brought to the fore. We are also working with the charity Mental Abuse Matters to make this happen.
Location
We explored the Isle of Man the remote place that Louise chooses to run to. With its rugged beauty and its location off the mainland, the island captures the essence of escape and of starting over. We also hope to work with the community to provide jobs and use services that boost the local economy. With their support we hope to make this happen.
The Shoot
Filming on location in late summer 2019. We will shoot over 5 days. This is an ambitious project in terms of its cinematic scope and a film that really travels to festivals and for that the money buys us the time it takes to deliver uncompromised excellence and tell a gripping story with high production values. Money £10,000 is a fantastic foundation to build from. So we appeal to you to help us make this happen and invite you on our journey with Losing Grace. The money will go on quality lenses, camera, set and crew.
Cast and Crew
The film debuts the unearthed talent of young Tabatha Howard (12 years old) who will play Grace opposite the brilliant actor Liz Farahadi who will play Louise. We are committed to shooting this with an all female crew to give opportunity and redress the balance in film where men usually staff many of the technical and behind the camera positions. So we are delighted to already have onboard the Bafta nominated editor Nse Asuquo and the beautiful cinematography of Beatriz Delgado Mena.
Tabatha Howard, only 12 years old, is an exciting up and coming actress. She is training with the prestigious LAMDA, and every single exam result she has had has been a distinction. She is also an excellent dancer and musician, playing the piano, drums and steel pans. She is a keen song writer and scores her own music. She has performed on numerous occasions at the Arts Depot. She has also performed at the Barnet Dance Festival and was a runner up at North London’s Got Talent. She has just finished playing Whitney in Legally Blond for Friern Barnet’s Performing Arts School. Tabatha is looking forward to start filming her debut role of Grace in Losing Grace.
Liz Farahadi has starred in a number of independent films, theatre productions and commercials, working with highly-acclaimed directors such as Jeremy Wooding and award-winning director Marcel Mandu, The Journey.She then wrote the award winning film Love and Other Stuff. This picked up 3 awards and was shown at 8 international film festivals including the prestigious NYC Soho International Film Festival where it was in competition. She is the driving force behind Losing Grace and has brought together Athena and Aradhna to develop this powerful short to lay the ground for the feature Polly. Her commitment to female driven narrative is relentless and draws from an unusual and tumultuous past.
Athena Mandis is an award-winning writer and director, a Lecturer in Film Practice at QMUL and developing a slate of films for production, including Polly. Her feature script Xenos was short-listed for Sundance Screenwriters Lab 2018 and won Best Script at the Cyprus International Film Festival 2018. She has directed numerous shorts and docs including the award-winning Return to Chiapas before taking a break to raise her family. Her website can be found here.
Aradhna Tayal is an award-winning producer. She worked with Tread Softly Productions on independent feature film Lovelorn, distributed by FilmWorks Entertainment and with producer Christine Hartland (WMD, Containment) on Nitrate, a new feature by Gavin Boyter (Sparks and Embers) and Guy Ducker, which won funding from the European Commission MEDIA programme. She has produced numerous short films, with support from Film London and the National Film & Television School. These include Driver, by BAFTA-nominated director Stephen Fingleton (The Survivalist) and Duncan Wellaway's Henry Cowell. Aradhna executive produced The River. starring Clive Russell.
Nse Asuquo, Editor. Trained at the National Film and Television School (UK), specialising in Editing.
Last year she finished editing the Sri Lankan feature film House Of My Fathers which premiered in competitionat the Hamburg Film Festival (2018) and which the Hollywood Reporter called 'A poetic allegory on war and its consequences...'. She was nominated at the Sundance Film Festival (2013) in the World Cinema Documentary Editing category for The Stuart Hall Project and was also on the shortlist for the 2016 Jules Wright Prize for Female Creative Technicians.
Her editing portfolio consists of Sundance, Grierson, Sheffield and BAFTA nominated documentaries for television and the cinema. Nse's website.
For more information on the project please visit the official Losing Grace website, or follow us on Twitter.
Updates
Time to party and help spread the word.
As a way of thank you to everyone who has pledged support for Losing Grace and to anyone who would like to know more and meet the team, we would love to invite you to an evening of food and films celebrating women filmmakers
the story so far.
We had an awesome campaign here on Greenlit and hit out target of 10k. We are also delighted to announce that we were awarded a futher 5k from Arts Council Isle of Man.
Thank you!
Dear wonderful backers
Apologies that this has not come sooner, but just wanted to say on behalf of all the team on LOSING GRACE, a massive thank you for all your support.
Losing Grace is nearly finished
Dear all
thank you once again for supporting this project. We are looking to finalise it next week. We are super happy with the result but want to have a team viewing before we sign it off. Once this is done we will be sending it to festivals.