• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Film Festival Flix Presents Press Kit Final Press Contact: Distributor Contact: Linda Brown Film Festival Flix Indie PR Phone 818.232.7005 818.753.0700 Fax 818.763.5319 1 [email protected] [email protected] Page Logline Joanna wants to become a Nun. At the convent, a bunch of women with border-line mental illness make her wonder if she’s following the right path. Synopsis Joanna (Emily Beecham) is about to graduate from University with her future set up for her but she has decided to face up to a truth she has been avoiding her whole life. Since she was small, she has had the desire to become a Nun. She is set on joining a closed order of Benedictines. Her best friend cannot believe it, her boyfriend is devastated and her mother (Amanda Donohoe) feels it’s just a phase. The only encouragement she gets is from the family’s religious housekeeper, Consuela (Harriet Thorpe). When she finally gets to the convent, the liberalism of a politically active Novice Sister, Ignatious (Brenda Blethyn) and a group of nuns with border-line mental illness, including a psychotic Mother Superior (Susannah York) and an alcoholic football fan in charge of the vineyard (Rita Tushingham), an over-pious floor mopper, Sister Hilda (Pauline McLynn), at first, makes her wonder if she’s following the right path. But as she gets to know the Sisters, their enormous community bond and the spiritual love that connects them she starts to see glimpses of her own spiritual fulfillment. Several weeks into her vocation she discovers something in herself which brings a whole new series of secrets out into the open until eventually the bond she has with Sister Ignatious dictates and assists in her destiny. Made by the award winning filmmakers of Gypo and Ruby Blue, here another social issue is tackled a little less earnestly and yet with equal heart as before. 2 Page About the Writer/Director Jan Dunn This is Jan Dunn’s third feature film in as many years, before The Calling, she had written and directed two multi award winning, critically acclaimed feature films, Ruby Blue (UK cinemas 2008) starring Bob Hoskins and French screen legend, Josiane Balasko and Gypo, (UK cinemas 2006) starring Paul McGann, Pauline McLynn and Rula Lenska as well as a number of short films, most notably her comedies Mary’s Date and Joan and her documentary shorts, The Lumber-Jills (about women in World War Two who took over the running of forests in the UK including everything from physically chopping trees down to haulage and pit building) and Dora about the naive artist, Dora Holzhandler. As well as winning major awards including a prestigious British Independent Film Award for Gypo, both films were critically acclaimed with four and five star reviews in mainstream publications in the UK and US. In 2006, The Hollywood Reporter stated Gypo had marked her out as “a filmmaker to watch” with Screen International calling her “a very promising new British Talent”. Jan is also attached as director to a number of projects outside those being developed by her company. She has now acquired the film rights to the best selling novel Sacred Country by British novelist Rose Tremain (OBE), she is currently adapting the screenplay herself and the film will be produced by veteran UK producer, Pippa Cross and Dunn is already attracting a top international cast. Their company, Maeve Films, recently won a Kent Business Award, notably for the work they have done getting young disenfranchised kids into the work place or on to higher education through the shadowing schemes they have been attaching to all their films. Dunn is particularly passionate about helping poor, working class kids as she was one herself. She grew up in Maidenhead, Berkshire where her dad worked in a local factory and her mum was an auxillery nurse before retiring as a school dinner-lady. She believes that creatively her childhood was shaped by typically British working class nineteen seventies holidays in caravans or at Butlins holiday camps. Her family were part of the exodus to British seaside towns still enjoyed by factory workers well into the nineteen seventies, each summer in the days when the factories closed down for two weeks. Dunn believes it was inevitable that she would end up living in a seaside town. Jan Dunn believes her destiny was changed completely by her drama teacher who discovered and encouraged a talent for acting and inspired her to read a novel for the first time aged fifteen. This lead directly to youth theatre and amateur dramatics. She went on to train as a classical actress at drama school in London and has acted in everything from Shakespeare to Shaw. She is now Industry Professor at Thanet College, Kent; has served two elected terms on the board of Women in Film, is currently on the Board for Kent Film 3 Office and is a member of BAFTA and DirectorsUK. Page Producer - Elaine Wickham After completing her Masters Degree in Feature Film Producing at Goldsmiths University, Elaine Wickham teamed up with writer/director Jan Dunn, to produce their first feature film Gypo, which earned Elaine and Medb Films industry recognition as well as invitations to festivals around the world. The film won a prestigious British Independent Film Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Production" and numerous film and cast awards internationally. Elaine produced Jan's second feature Ruby Blue, starring Bob Hoskins. The film won “Best UK Feature” at the London Independent Film Festival, the “Grand Jury Prize” at the Washington DC Independent Film, “Best Actor” award at the Oxford International Film Festival and the “Spirit Award” at the Moondance Film Festival amongst others. Last year, Elaine completed her directorial debut with a UK Film Council funded short film, My Mother, produced by Jan, which won “Best Director” at Euroshorts Film Festival, “Special Jury Award” at the Houston International Film Festival and “Best Short Film” at the London Independent Film Festival and a “Special Jury Mention” at the A Corto Di Donne Film Festival and Busho Film Festival and other awards. My Mother is currently screening in competition at many film festivals worldwide. Elaine was recently selected on the UKFC Cine Euro Programme, and was on UKFC Guiding Lights Scheme where she was mentored by Michael Kuhn, she was also selected as the UK candidate on the European Film Promotion talent scheme “Producer on the Move” in Cannes 2007 highlighting British new producing talent. Elaine has been supported by Screen South, European Development Fund, the British Council and the British Department of Trade and Industry. South African born, she is now setting up a co-production funding project with Gatehouse Studios in Cape Town to produce three indigenously written South African films, herself directing the adaptation of the acclaimed novel, Ja, No Man by Richard Poplak. She is developing her directorial debut with Screen South, Lollipop. 4 Page Director’s Notes, THE CALLING By Writer / Director Jan Dunn Once again my film has been written entirely around constraints of budget and location. When I set out on such restricted journeys, I am never entirely sure what kind of production value I can attain to but pretty much set out with my fingers crossed, gifted with a wonderful creative team. When I feel confident that a realistic film budget may be raised for my films, I will write and shoot in a more traditional manner with more traditionally commercial fare. Unfortunately most filmmakers today have to be aware from the outset of the market place and their (ie: my) value in it. As with my first two films, I am driven to write on contemporary social issues but unlike Gypo and Ruby Blue, this time it was my intention to create something a little more gentle and less gritty in its dramatic delivery, more measured and a little more idiosyncratic. I’ve always been fascinated by people who commit to one spiritual teaching and I started with the question of why would a young girl nowadays give up a modern life and all its excesses to devote herself to nothing but prayer and contemplation, in the perhaps naive belief that the power of the collective would help towards world change? It is a subject which has always interested me. As suspected, during my research it became apparent that this is quite rare today and the majority of British women who make the choice to commit to a spiritual teaching, of whichever denomination, tend to be over the age of forty. How odd a Calling might seem to everyone around this girl, family and friends, particularly if there is no great religious commitment in her background? I thought it would be interesting if that “calling” might also be hard to accept from a group of nuns who are themselves not used to young women taking their vocation seriously and instead of welcoming this young woman with open arms, they might be weary of it and perhaps a little suspicious of it lasting. What is interesting about a calling to be with God is that there is absolutely nothing tangible to offer an audience because a calling is an internal drive. An alarming number of much older nuns seem to have had their initiation into the order forced upon them after shaming their families with pregnancy but nowadays this tends not to be hidden by an apparent “calling”. However, motherhood and/or a lack of it is a through line in the film that I wanted to commit to as it does come up regularly in interviews with nuns from any denomination and is often the ultimate reason to leave an order.

Load more

  11

Copy Link