THE STORY

Set in modern day London, Tara has come back after years of living abroad since receiving the news of her mother's passing. On her final day before leaving, she must go through the possessions of the family home with her younger brother Jake and his girlfriend Grace. As they establish the terms of the will and organise the contents of the house, they must also confront each other and decide if their fractured relationship is one worth fighting for.

WHO'S INVOLVED

JARED GARFIELD is the writer, director and co-producer. Jared is an actor/writer with a background in dance and choreography. He has created dance films such as Phone Romance (commissioned by Canvas) and A Memory of Me (commissioned by Dance Film Festival UK). This will be his first narrative fiction.

CAMERON RICHARDS of Lonely Kite Pictures is co-producing. Cameron has a proven track record in creating powerful and impactful shorts, including The Sea, which starred Anna Friel and Russell Tovey and was released in association with Alzheimer's Research UK.

TWAN PEETERS is the Director of Photography. Twan is a Dutch cinematographer and alumni from The National Film & Television School in the UK. His work is focussed on narrative fiction, documentary, music video’s and art films shot across the UK and the Netherlands.

ISABEL GARFIELD is on Production Design. She is an artist and art department trainee with experience working on TV productions and scenic painting. Her credits include Heartstopper (Netflix) and she trained at the Royal Drawing School. Her art work will be featured in the film.

PATRIZIO KNIGHT is our composer. Patrizio is a British/Italian composer based in Brighton. Most notably, he composed the music for Channel 4 and Netflix production The Circle, Channel 4 production Rise & Fall as well as scoring the award winning feature film Twice Shy. Previously to composing, Patrizio toured internationally as a session musician playing on some of the worlds most prestigious stages.

SHANA SWASH will play 'Tara'. Her credits include; My Feral Heart, Eastenders (BBC), Top Boy (Netflix) and Love Without Walls, which recently won Best Film at the UK Film Awards and has been nominated in four categories at the National Film Awards.

JAKE DAVIES will play 'Jake'. He recently starred opposite Mark Rylance in The Phantom of the Open and was selected for Screen Daily's 2021 Stars of Tomorrow. Other credits include; Artemis Fowl, The Missing (BBC) and Black Mirror’s ‘Metalhead’ episode (Netflix). He also appeared in Paul Andrew Williams’ revenge drama Bull, which premiered in August at Montreal’s Fantasia film festival, and in prison series Screw (C4), created by Rob Williams.

KATIE MATSELL will play 'Grace'. Katie recently played the lead in Tennesse William's Suddenly Last Summer at the English Theatre Frankfurt. Other credits include; Othello (National Theatre); Clybourne Park (Park Theatre); Museum of Austerity (English Touring Theatre/National Theatre); The Mirror Crack’d (Wales Millennium Centre/Wiltshire Creative) and Titans (HBO/Netflix).

TONE AND FEEL

The film will aim to subvert expectations of what a British family comedy drama can look and feel like: soft colour tones, working class characters from inner city London, honest and imperfect lighting. The film will feel like it could go to very dark places, but it never quite travels that far. Silence will deepen the awkwardness and difficulty of the moment, amplified by other sounds that we wouldn’t ordinarily take much notice of - the kettle boiling, the printer printing, a clearing of the throat, the sipping of tea. Key tonal references are Alexander Payne's Nebraska for it's dry wit in the way it deals with family relationships. Also Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story and Hagai Levi's Scene's from a Marriage in how they explore resentment and conflict.

THE DIRECTOR'S VISION

"I want to show the messiness of grief, family and the emotional experience of being
disinherited. I want to explore how we connect to places and material objects differently,
and the awkward parallel meanings they can hold. A house is on one hand a home where we spent our most formative years, full of memories and emotion, but also a material asset. And for Jake an opportunity for a different life. At its heart it's a human story about a brother and sister, who are worlds apart finding
themselves thrust together by the most profound shared experience siblings can have, and
the challenge of them navigating it together. I want audiences to go away from this with a
renewed sense of value in the meaningful relationships they have, and to offer hope that no matter how difficult, bridges can always be built between us."

THE PLAN

Having wrapped on a successful shoot, we are now in the post production phase.

We're looking to raise money to fund our post-production process, which we are looking to complete this year, ready for a festival run in 2024.

photo credit: Jay Sentrosi