Cine Hustle: The full programme

Curated by Ludovico, Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival (WCAF) presents an evening of independent film and panel discussion hosted by Darren Jeffries and featuring work by northern filmmakers including WCAF Open 2020 winner Hope Strickland.

Programme:

PACE; Directed by Danny Miller

OCAK; Directed by Zeynep Kaserci

ROY; Directed by Tom Berkeley and Ross White

HOME SOON COME: Directed by Hope Strickland

Followed by a Q&A / Panel discussion featuring Daniel Jillings, Bryony Pulizzi, Hope Strickland and Soraya Lemsatef

  1. PACE

Based on a true events. Jason Steele, an expectant father throws a gender reveal party with his partner, Emma.

The party is in full swing and everyone is in high spirits. Until a few alcohol-infused moments of tension between Ben and Rick mean the party starts to get out of hand.

Ben, Emma’s brother and Rick, Jason’s best friend Rick haven’t always seen eye to eye. Jason is alerted by a friend that Ben and Rick are fighting outside. Jason, trying to keep the peace, gets in between the two of them.

What happens next will haunt Jason and his family for the rest of their lives…

Director Biography – Danny Miller

Danny Miller is best known for his work in front of the camera rather than behind it, being best known for his role as Aaron, in Emmerdale. A passion for directing has seen Danny shadow many directors over the past few years.

He said: “This is my first project as a filmmaker and completely self funded with a budget of £2,000 and a lot of favours. I can’t wait for you to see it.”

CAST

Siobhan Finneran as DS Howard
The Stranger, Downton Abbey, A Confession, Happy Valley

Faye McKeever as Emma Ridgway
A Confession, Trollied, Little Boy Blue, The Moorside

Daniel Jillings as Jason Steele
Coronation Street, Prey, Enemy Lines

Simon Lennon as DC Felton
Our Girl

James Quinn as Sgt Williams
Bancroft, World on Fire, Early Doors

Joe Gill as Benjamin
Emmerdale

FILMMAKERS

Danny Miller – Director

Daniel Jillings – Writer

Danny Miller – Writer

Simon Lennon – Producer

Danny Miller – Producer

Daniel Jillings – Producer

  1. OCAK

Ocak is a short documentary film that explores the story of a family who earns their livelihood as hazelnut cultivators in rural north-eastern Turkey.

Filmed in an observational style, it offers glimpses into the local everyday life in the village and explores the relationship between people and their hazelnut gardens which have been inherited throughout generations. As the film reflects on labour and gender, it also asks questions about the heart, land and family.

Ocak hopes to challenge the all too prevalent mainstream narrative within the documentary media tradition, which frame gender dynamics in the Muslim Middle East simply as an oppressor-oppressed dichotomy.

By taking the audience closer to the daily worries and desires, joys and quarrels of the people on screen, Ocak provides an in-depth ethnographic understanding of life as lived by the members of this community.

Director Biography – Zeynep Kaserci

Zeynep is a documentary filmmaker and researcher based in London. Born in Izmir, Turkey, she moved to Scotland to pursue her undergraduate degree in art history and social anthropology at the University of St Andrews and completed her MA at the Granada Center for Visual Anthropology in Manchester.

In her media work, she is interested in exploring the poetics of everyday life and telling stories that humanise social issues. She has done research on Mahayana Buddhism in Dharamsala, India (2016) and hazelnut cultivation in north-eastern Turkey (2019). Zeynep hopes to make short films and documentaries that generate conversations and bring people closer together.

FILMMAKER

Zeynep Kaserci – Director / Editor

  1. ROY

Trapped in a lonely existence, reclusive widower Roy (BAFTA winner David Bradley) passes the days by cold calling strangers from the phone book, looking for brief moments of companionship. But when he accidentally calls adult hotline worker Cara (Oscar winner Rachel Shenton), an unlikely friendship is born that will help them both rediscover the joy of life. From the Academy Award-winning team behind The Silent Child, Roy is a funny, heart-warming tale of two lost souls who find companionship just when they need it most.

CAST

Roy – David Bradley

Cara – Rachel Shenton

FILMMAKERS

Writer/Director – Tom Berkeley Ross White

Producer – Bryony Pulizzi

Production company – Slick Films

Director of Photography – Tom Martin

Production Designer – Rachel Denning

Editor – Stephen Dunne

  1. HOME SOON COME

Home Soon Come is part of an on-going project with the elderly Caribbean community in South Manchester. The film plays between archival footage of the Caribbean islands, domestic spaces in Manchester and scenes shot in a day centre for the Caribbean elderly. It is a film that sits between past and present, with an emphasis on memory-placing through the people around us and what it means to find ourselves at home.

Director Biography – Hope Strickland

Hope Strickland is an artist and researcher from Manchester, UK, working predominantly with moving image, documentary and text. Her work is concerned with Black feminist thought, archival response and postcolonial ecologies.

Hope is currently undertaking a practice-related PhD in Social Anthropology at UCL, exploring Lasirenn, liquidity and queer sexualities in the Haitian diaspora.

Her work has been shown at a variety of international, ethnographic film festivals including: Athens Ethnographic Film Festival, Nordic Anthropological Film Association Festival and the German International Ethnographic Film Festival.

FILMMAKER

Hope Strickland – Director / Editor