HONEYTRAP Written and Directed by REBECCA JOHNSON
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Bright Pictures and Finite Films present in association with Creativity Media and Fierce Productions HONEYTRAP Written and Directed by REBECCA JOHNSON Starring: JESSICA SULA, LUCIEN LAVISCOUNT, NTONGA MWANZA & NAOMI RYAN Produced by: SARAH SULICK and AMY RICKER Executive Produced by: LAURIE HOLDEN Running time: 93 mins U.S. Press Contact: Tilane Jones | [email protected] Mercedes Cooper | [email protected] U.S. Distributor: ARRAY Releasing | www.ArrayNow.com @ArrayNow HONEYTRAP Production Notes 2 SYNOPSIS HONEYTRAP is a tragic teen romance, set in South London and inspired by true events. It tells the story of fifteen-year-old Layla, who sets up the boy in love with her to be killed. Fresh off the boat from Trinidad and full of fairytale fantasies, Layla is swept off her feet by self-styled gang leader/rapper Troy. But in the dog-eat-dog world where being Troy’s girl buys her envy as well as status, social outsider Shaun becomes her only true friend. When Troy discards her, Layla is left in ruins. She vows to rebuild herself as a hardened player in order to win him back and Shaun becomes a pawn in her game. Soon the forces she has set in motion are escalating out of control. The first UK urban drama seen from a girl's point of view, HONEYTRAP is authentically local in its setting but universal in its themes of passion, jealousy and revenge. We have not seen a character like Layla take centre-stage before and it’s time her story was told. BACKGROUND TO THE STORY… HONEYTRAP takes as its creative point of departure a case that came to public attention in 2008. Fifteen-year-old Samantha Joseph led sixteen-year- old Shakilus Townsend to a quiet cul de sac in Croydon where he was murdered by a gang led by Danny McLean, the boy she was in love with. Joseph insisted she had not known when she agreed to the set up that Shakilus would be killed. The jury decided otherwise and she was found guilty, along with the boys that carried out the attack, of murder. QC for the Prosecution Brian Altman said Joseph had known “exactly what she was doing in manipulating her sexuality.” In his sentencing, Judge Richard Hawkins said: “The reality that these young people with no souls had such a disregard for life that they deliberately conspired to use manipulation to cause nothing short of destruction is absolutely soul-destroying for me.” Rebecca initially began to write the story of the case but soon realised she didn’t want the creative restrictions or responsibility of depicting actual people. Her work over the last decade with young people in Brixton, many of whom are touched by gang culture, gave her ample means and material to draw on in creating a story that was fictional but nonetheless powerfully authentic. Q&A: REBECCA JOHNSON, Writer-Director 1) Where did the idea for HONEYTRAP come from? The idea for the film came from a case that took place in South London near where I live. A fifteen-year old girl had set up a boy, luring him to a quiet cul- de-sac, where he was killed by a group led by the boy she was in love with. HONEYTRAP Production Notes 3 During the trial, press coverage very much hinged around how young and beautiful she was and yet how calculating and inhuman. It was similar to other gang-related killing stories we see in the press – blank faces we are encouraged to look at in horror, never to see ourselves in, but because she was female there was this extra level of abjection. I found it extremely disturbing that she was characterised both in the trail (by the prosecution) and in the press as a femme fatale, despite the fact she was still legally a child. One piece reported that she was laughing as the boy was killed (there is no substantiation for this). I suddenly thought: if she had been laughing, it would have been in shock. Improbable emotions can come out at extreme times – I have experienced it myself. That thought started unlocking other thoughts. In the work I’ve done with young people in Brixton over the last decade, I’ve got to know many who were involved or affected by gang culture in different ways. I know from first hand experience that young people who’ve been involved in terrible violence are often not at all what you might expect from reading these articles. They are not blank-eyed and impenetrable. They are not at all scary for the most part. They are very vulnerably, messily human. I realised that I wanted to make a film about this because it needed to be seen. De-humanising children, even if they’ve been involved in abhorrent violence, is not the solution. It is not acceptable for us as the media, as adults or as a society. The way that girls are involved is starting to become more of a focus now but it’s still not something we’ve seen on screen with any attempt at veracity. That was also something I felt was important to put out there. 2) The film is ‘inspired’ by true events. How much is truth and how much have you created yourself? My first inspiration came from the real case: I did a lot of research around it and talked to many of the people involved and connected to it. But gradually I came to the decision that I needed to be freer in the way I told the story. I needed to create my own characters and not feel bound by the huge sense of duty that came with depicting actual people who really existed. Through my work, I had connections with young people who’d been involved in gang violence and had been caught up in that state – where, owing to a fundamental lack of grounding, life seems cheap and consequences don’t seem real. I felt I had immersed myself enough to create characters and a story that would be authentic. Some of the young people I’ve worked with have become friends. I’m a mentor to them but they have also been extremely helpful to me – as script consultants, production assistants etc. There were four in particular who read and re-read the script over the years and fed into it, which was absolutely invaluable to my writing process. 3) You’ve lived and worked in the areas the film is set for a number of years. How did that help? HONEYTRAP Production Notes 4 I’ve actually lived in or near Brixton for nearly twenty years and I’ve also been making films with young people in the community for more than ten and both of those things helped a lot. I have built up a network and a level of trust that it wouldn’t have been possible to make HONEYTRAP without. I’ve been based at Stockwell Park estate right in the heart of Brixton for my recent shorts Top Girl and Home Turf, and the friends and contacts I’ve made there have been the mainstay of getting this film made. People are used to seeing me around. They like the films I’ve made so they wanted to help and be part of this one. 4) Did you feel a greater duty to do the areas justice, given the film looks at more negative aspects of life in these areas? The responsibility I felt was to depict everyone as multi-faceted, believable characters so that viewers would engage with them – all of them, even as they made terrible choices and did terrible things. The responsibility I felt was to tell a story dramatically without using melodrama or the two dimensional, dehumanising broad-strokes of a news piece. 5) Do you think this is a different take on gang-related drama audiences may have seen? It is the first to centre round a girl as the lead character. And it’s the first time, to my knowledge, that a film has been made about a girl who acts as a honeytrap where it’s her side of the story being told. HONEYTRAP is an urban film as it takes place in that world and will, I hope, speak to that audience but it is a new take on the genre. It has a very different feel and tone. For example the music in it is mainly orchestral score, something you wouldn’t find in a typical urban film. 6) Did you speak to and seek the blessing of the families of those involved in the ‘honeytrap’ cases you called on for inspiration? Initially I was going to make a film that was very much about the real case. I started to research it and I spoke to quite a few people who’d been involved: police, court reporters, prosecution and defence lawyers, young people and also parents who’d suffered the terrible loss of a child. I felt it was important not only for research but out of respect. The film is no longer a factual retelling but that respect is still very important to me. 7) Is there optimism in the film? I think the film succeeds in making you identify with people you could very easily be made to judge and condemn and there is something inherently hopeful in that: in our ability to connect with each other as human beings; I am saying that we are still human even if we do even dreadful things.