FILM-MAKERS STARS OF TOMORROW
film is about two sisters “trying to deal with a world which is set against them”. McGregor is still making short
films, though, and is a particular fan of the Sci-Fi London 48-hour film challenge, where he has submitted some outstanding entries over the last two years. “I didn’t really start out thinking of this as a career, but I’ve enjoyed it and nobody is telling me to stop,” he says.
Contact Jennie Miller, Independent Talent Group +44 (0) 20 7636 6565
jenniemiller@independenttalent.com
JAMIE STONE (PICTURED PREVIOUS PAGE) Writer-director Jamie Stone has just been nomi- nated for a Student Academy Award for his National Film and Television School (NFTS) graduation short Skyborn. So when he says “there has been a fantastic response from all comers”, since the screening, he is not exaggerating. Though he was signed by an
agency on the back of his first-year short Sh-boom, interest in Stone has skyrocketed since Skyborn, much like the Gilliam-like aircraft at its centre. Stone describes the short as “rustic sci-fi”. It is “Mad Max post- apocalyptic but more British, so wet, and includes a lot of strategic fog because we had no money”. Skyborn, based around the Icarus
myth, was a terrifically ambitious undertaking, and it could have fallen flat. But 26-year-old Stone displayed such a confident grip on his story that he made it all look seamless. Now the film-maker, with his
fine-art background — Stone was artist-in-residence at the Henderson Gallery in Edinburgh, then studied film at Edinburgh College of Art — is focused on how to turn Skyborn into a feature, the largest and “most realistic” project on his plate right now. His father is the film-maker Nor-
man Stone, so he has been exposed to film all his life. “I have no illusions this is an easy way to make a living, but it has always looked like a lot of fun,” he says. With a strong interest in anima- tion, Stone has also shot several
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documentaries, and he only started writing “by accident” at the NFTS when it came time to produce Sky- born. That’s one happy accident, and one he looks set to continue. Contact Jago Irwin
jagoirwin@independenttalent.com +44 (0) 20 7636 6565
DAVID LEON (PICTURED PREVIOUS PAGE) Actor-writer-director The most recognisable face in the Stars of Tomorrow line-up of film- makers due to his success as an actor, David Leon is making a noise these days behind the camera. From the short film Father, which
he co-wrote, to last year’s showstop- per Man And Boy, which won the best narrative short award at the Tribeca Film Festival, 32-year-old Newcastle-born Leon has been com- manding attention on an interna- tional level. “I have been forging this path in a
single-minded, doggedly deter- mined way,” he says. “You’ve got to really prove yourself — you’ve got to produce exceptional work for people to listen. I’ve been careful to try to make quality over quantity.” Now Leon is ready to make the
next step with his first full-length feature Driven, which he hopes will shoot in Newcastle and Northum- berland in early 2013. Damian Lewis, Jessica Brown Findlay and Peter Capaldi are set to star in this gritty drama loosely based on Leon’s own childhood experiences. Photographer Rankin’s Rankin
Film is attached as executive pro- ducer. Leon starred in Rankin’s The Lives Of The Saints. “People I’ve worked with as an actor have had a belief in me and a willingness to get involved,” he says. Leon is also working on a
20-minute short called Orthodox and he is on UK TV screens in the ITV detective drama Vera. “One of the reasons I wanted to
become an actor was that I was in love with storytelling,” he says. “I have been inspired by film my whole life and I want to touch people in the same way.” Contact Curtis Brown +44 (0) 20 7393 4493
cb@curtisbrown.co.uk
RUTH FOWLER Writer “I have this really bad reputation,” says Fowler with a laugh. “People Google me and they aren’t sure what to expect when they meet me.” Well, she does call herself a ‘socio-
KIBWE TAVARES Writer-director Do yourself a favour and take a look at the (very) short film Robots Of Brix- ton on Vimeo. It has had more than 250,000 hits so you won’t be the only one taken aback by Kibwe Tavares’ accomplished final project for his Masters degree in architecture (he also holds a Masters in engineering). Robots caused something of a stir in architecture circles when it won the RIBA silver medal — the highest accolade for a student architect — but it has set Tavares firmly on the path of a film-making career. “It was my final thesis, self-
funded, and I worked on it for six to seven months,” recalls the south London-born and based founder of animation collective Factory Fifteen. In addition to the prestigious
RIBA prize, Robots — which was inspired by 28-year-old Tavares’ reflections on the riots in Brixton in 1981 and 1985 and their effect on the black community — won the special jury award for animation at the Sun- dance Film Festival earlier this year. Now he is shooting his second
short, Jonah, written with former Star of Tomorrow Jack Thorne and produced by Ivana MacKinnon for Film4, BFI and Shine Pictures. This semi-mythical story about tourism and the world’s biggest fish is being shot on location in Zanzibar and is a live-action affair with digital anima- tion and set extensions. “I didn’t plan on being a film-maker,” he admits. “But doing Robots made me under- stand it’s the perfect thing for me.”
Contact Anthony Mestriner, Casarotto Ramsay & Associates +44 (0) 20 7287 4450
anthony@casarotto.co.uk
pathic narcissist’ on her website. Once upon a time, a down-on-her- luck Fowler wrote a book (Girl, Undressed) about her experiences as a stripper in New York, but that luck has changed now and this Los Angeles-based, UK-focused Cam- bridge University graduate from Wales is finding she has the right reputation with all the right people. A devoted and passionate gonzo-
style journalist and blogger (she is fully behind the Occupy movement), Fowler wrote a sparkling screenplay called Fly Me for Park Entertain- ment about airline entrepreneur Freddie Laker, which made her fans in the film industry. Now she is about to start adapting Marina Lewycka’s bestselling book A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian for Ruby Films and the BBC. Fowler has also finished working
with Matt Jones (Shameless) on the pilot for an original series with the working title Talent for Company Tel- evision and Sky. She is also adapting Terence Blacker’s novella Boy2girl as a teen musical for Kindle Entertain- ment. She has stories of her own as well. “I grew up in a tiny little town in Wales, with one bus going out of there,” says 32-year-old Fowler, who travelled the world working as a “chef on yachts for rich people”. “I wanted to be a writer but I
didn’t have any life experience. Some writers live in an imaginary world, but I like to go out and see and do things. I spend six months out there, then I go back into reclusive mode.”
Contact Charlotte Kelly, Casarotto Ramsay & Associates +44 (0) 20 7287 4450
charlotte@casarotto.co.uk
MAHALIA BELO Writer-director Mahalia Belo, known as May, gradu- ated this year from the NFTS with the short Volume. It is a stunning, take-notice debut in which the Lon- don-born director creates an exqui- site, haunting suburban world and
June-July 2012 Screen International 35 n
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Photographed in the Infinity Suite at The Langham, London
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