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Charlie Productions : Death Of The Revolution

Death Of The Revolution Poster

2006, 6mins, 16mm.

Nominated for Best Short Film & European Prix UIP Award at
The 60th Edinburgh International Film Festival, August 2006.
Also taking part in:
The Portello River Festival, Italy, May 2006,
The 27th Durban International Film Festival, South Africa, June 2006,
The Melbourne International Film Festival,Australia, July 2006,
Continental Drift International Short Film Festival, Canada, September 2006,
The Reykjavik International Film Festival, Iceland, October 2006,
The 51st Cork Film Festival, Ireland, October 2006,
The 50th London Film Festival, England, October 2006
The Austin Film Festival, Texas, US, October 2006.
The 19th Seagate Foyle Film Festival, Northern Ireland, November 2006.
And Bite Size Cinema's Autumn 2006 Season

When Tony is told off for stealing a pencil, his ten year-old logic seethes at the injustice. What course of action is open to him other than to inspire a juvenile revolt? With truth, justice and his comrade pupils marching by his side, what can possibly stop him?

Death Of The Revolution is a vivid and delightful political fantasy anchored by a brilliant central performance from first-time actor Alastair Marshall. Ten at the time of shooting, this precocious and difficult role is the first part Alastair has ever taken on. Spotted by directors Ben & Chris Blaine at the school where they were to shoot the film, Alastair was given the role because of a natural affinity with the part that soon became clear in auditions. However no one quite expected him to take to the filming process with such ease and professionalism.

"It's a script that we've wanted to make for some years" says Ben Blaine . "But we always held off until we knew we could make it right. Finding a boy capable of delivering the brief history of political thought that forms the guts of the script was always one of the biggest challenges but Alastair just seemed to understand what we wanted from the first time he read it."

"This was always meant to be a our last ever short film, so when the opportunity to make "Hallo Panda" with FilmFour and the Film Council came along, we did wonder if it'd get a bit sidelined and forgotten about. So it was great when it became only our second ever film to get into Edinburgh, and since then the world seems to have opened it's arms."

Ben's Blog - Death Of The Revolution In Edinburgh.

THE TEAM

Death Of The Revolution
Chris and Ben with Quinny and Barrington. Photograph by Jessica Thomas

Producers

Quinny Sacks of QS Productions has a background of choreography (her credits include "The Singing Detective", "Shakespeare In Love" and "Troy"). We met her whilst working on Rob Kluger's short film "French Fries On The Golden Front". Having recently produced her first West End show ("Through The Leaves") she was keen to move into producing film and "Death Of The Revolution" was a perfect opportunity for her.

Barrington Paul Robinson produced our previous short film "Free Speech". He is a self-taught filmmaker with a knack of being able to make things happen out of nothing.

Crew

Oliver Russell IS Jack Black. Photograph by Jessica Thomas
We've been working with Director of Photography Oliver Russell since 2001 and he is an integral part of our team. He has a talent that belies his age and anyone not already convinced by his beautiful use of HD on "Free Speech" only needs to see our rushes for the revolution to see that he's destined for great things.

Thanks to Quinny and Barrington our usual production family was swelled by the massive experience of Production Manager Gerard Wall and 1st AD Toby Hefferman, who have between them worked on films ranging from "Full Metal Jacket" to "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory".

Cast

Of course one of the things that had always made us hesitate about making this film before was the task of finding a ten year-old boy capable of delivering the monologue on radical political history. We spent some months scouring schools and drama groups but, despite seeing some talented kids, there were no real candidates for Tony. Then we turned to the children of Camden Juniors in Carshalton, where Barrington happens to be a parent governor. Headteacher Denise Birkett had already seen and loved the script, and she was happy for us to use her school as a location.

Alistair Marshall. Photograph by Jessica Thomas
As soon as Alistair Marshall walked into the room Quinny was tugging at our sleeves and insisting that he was perfect. Obviously we wanted to put him through his paces before handing the parts out but deep down we all knew that if he could handle the dialogue he had exactly the right vibe for the role. His grasp of the script and his ease with the language put our minds at rest and halved our rehearsal schedule.

Not only has Alistair proven to be a natural and wonderfully relaxed screen actor but we were able to draw almost our entire cast from within the school.

We shot the film between the 14th and 17th of February 2005 and it is currently in post-production. We hope to have a finished film early in 2006.

The Cast and Crew of Death Of The Revolution. Photograph by Jessica Thomas (who has been cunningly photoshopped into the right hand corner...)
download large-scale version of the cast and crew photo



Charlie Productions believe passionately in doing things and always trying to stop in time for tea.
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