Kickstarter Update!
Sixteen hit its target and was fully funded
An urban thriller about Jumah, an African former child soldier living in London who is forced to confront his violent past.
re:VAULT speaks to director Rob Brown about his debut feature film ‘Sixteen’, that he is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter.
Can you start by telling us a little about ‘Sixteen’ and what the film is about?
‘Sixteen’ is an urban thriller about Jumah, an African former child soldier who is forced to confront his violent past when he witnesses a stabbing. Jumah is about to turn 16 and faces difficult choices about the kind of man he will become as he approaches adulthood. Primarily the film is about Jumah’s relationships with the women in his life, his adoptive mother Laura and girlfriend Chloe, and the difficulties he faces in opening up to them and letting go of his troubled past. ‘Sixteen’ is my first feature film so I wanted to make sure it had a really distinctive lead character and explored complex themes. It’s really difficult to make a feature film stand out amongst the competition but I think we have managed to achieve this with ‘Sixteen’.
Was the film inspired by any true events and what was the writing process like?
The film isn’t based on one particular former child soldier’s story but I did lots of research into the subject. I read all of the former child soldiers memoirs, spoke to Human Rights Watch researchers who work out in the field, other NGOs, charities and I spoke directly to some former child soldiers for my research. Our lead actor Roger Jean Nsengiyumva knows Emmanuel Jal (actor and author of acclaimed memoir ‘War Child’) so he was able to speak to him about his experiences as a child soldier to help him research the character.
The writing process was difficult (it took three years and continues in the edit as we speak) as it was my first feature script and I had picked a difficult subject to explore. I had completely ignored the principle about writing from your own life for your first feature film because I wanted to get an insight into something that was completely outside of my own experience of life. I am glad that I did this now but this is why it took so long.
One thing that really helped the development process of ‘Sixteen’ was being selected from 400 entries for the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum at Edinburgh Film Festival 2011. The opening 10 pages of ‘Sixteen’ were performed by professional actors in front of an industry audience and the hosts of the event were Nicola Shindler (Red Productions) and Matt Greenhalgh (Writer of Control and Nowhere Boy). I got some invaluable feedback from this process and couldn’t have written a script worth making without the insight and advice offered by the hosts and the industry audience.
So the film has already been shot, can you tell us a little about the process. 18 days doesn’t sound like a lot of time to film a feature, it must have been stressful?
18 days is definitely not long enough to shoot a feature film! Luckily we managed to achieve this and get a great film in the can but this was due to the extraordinary luck of having just the right cast and crew who were wholeheartedly committed to making the film happen in difficult circumstances. For example, we were mostly filming in a derelict block of flats in Dagenham during the coldest Spring since records began! But the cast and crew didn’t complain, they just got on with the job and proved their talent with the end results. However, shooting on such a tight schedule (and tiny £40k budget) wouldn’t usually result in such a great film. The shortest micro budget feature film shoot I have heard of amongst my peers recently is 24 days and that is still a very tight schedule. I feel really proud of what we achieved in 18 days.
You’re currently raising money on Kickstarter to fund the film, why crowdfunding?
I think crowdfunding is about more than just raising money, it’s about building an audience. Having a few thousand likes on facebook is one thing, having hundreds or thousands of people pledging money towards the completion of your film counts for much more as it’s a bigger commitment. It proves to sales agents and distributors that there is an audience out there for your film who are willing to commit their money to a great project that they want to see happen. We are starting to find and reach this audience on Kickstarter and I’m finding it really rewarding, its touching that people I don’t know will back a film I’ve been working on for nearly four years with their wallets. Every single pledge we get makes a massive difference as we can’t finish the film without getting the full £15k we need to complete post production. This is the last hurdle we need to get over to have a fully finished feature film that we’re really proud of and our Kickstarter backers are making this happen.
And what are your hopes for the finished film?
We’re aiming at using major international film festivals such as London, Sundance, Rotterdam, Berlin and SXSW as a launchpad to getting exposure for the film and securing a distribution deal. Myself and my cast have had our previous work screened at major international film festivals so I strongly believe that we can do this. Our main stumbling block is making sure that we get the Kickstarter money to complete the film in time for us to submit to major festivals that are running towards the end of this year or early 2014.
Where can people find out more
Our Kickstarter page is http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/382223528/sixteen-a-new-british-feature-film and we also have a website with more details www.seizefilms.co.uk
www.twitter.com/rbrowndirector
www.twitter.com/seizefilms
www.instagram.com/seizefilms
www.facebook.com/sixteen.themovie
http://vimeo.com/channels/sixteenfilm
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