RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

LONDON OCTOBER 2010

By JONNIE HURN

AUGUST 2010

“I like Tea with mint”, Says Malika in the film as she bounds upto Ching Court and into Callum’s life. I like tea with mint as well, as does Paul. We both acquired a taste for it after our respective trips to Marrakech, mine while developing the script and Paul ten months later while devising the shot lists.

I’m sat drinking mint tea in a café in Soho and thinking back to the early days of the film. It is now almost three years since we started pre production, a time where Paul and I drank endless amounts of the stuff made from the fresh mint I used to buy on Caledonian Road, three very bizarre years ago. I am with one of our Executive Producers Steve DiMarco who, generous as always, picks up the tab. After several fruitless job-seeking weeks in France I have spent pretty much the last money I have in the world to fly back to England. In a few days time I start back at my old job as studio manager in a national radio station, when I left there in December 2007 it was in less than harmonious circumstances, yet when I most needed help they have come through and welcomed me back without question or criticism. Although I will be earning regularly again the drawbacks are that I will be sleeping on various people’s floors and sofas for weeks on end and more importantly be away from my family. I haven’t booked a return flight, I don’t know when I will be going back home.

We talk about life in general as well as the film and it is a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. As we make to leave I mention that I need to pop just around the corner into the office of Raindance, the London-based Independent Film Organisation, to ask about The British Independent Film Awards. I speak to Elliot the founder of Raindance about our possible eligibility to enter the BIFAs and he says the easiest way is to be a part of the Raindance Film Festival. I mention that we were hoping to be in it but missed the submissions deadline some two months earlier. To my surprise he wafts a finger towards the far corner and suggests I speak with Xavier. Apparently they are still looking for UK films as they are somewhat fatigued with wading through endless gangster and zombie clones, maybe we are in luck as DEP is about as opposite of that as you can get. I break into the now well-rehearsed saga of the film’s trials and its origins and when Xavier asks me the title I am half way through the second word when he hands me a scrap of paper. The words Do Elephants Pray? are written down on it. He has been tracking the film for a while and was thinking of emailing us.

I text Paul the news. The next day we drop off a screener and press pack and wait.

OCTOBER 2010
France in September was once again a welcome relief from the frenetic London. It was five weeks before I could return home but in that time I worked nearly every day as well as pushing ahead with a couple of other film projects. On one rare day off my friend Drew and I went to Brighton to research a script I am working on, as we looked around a book stall I found a copy of “The Valkyries” by Paulo Coelho, the moment I read the back cover I knew it was something I had to read. I am now reading it for the second time back-to-back. After just 12 days at home I returned to London to work again. The next time I see France it will be after the Raindance Film Festival – after the UK Premier.

Three years ago we were in production. October was the month we spent in the forest in Brittany.

The opening night party kicks off the festival at the Café de Paris a venue that I have been to many times and always for an event like this. The last time Paul was there he was shooting a music video. The band Airborne Toxic Event play a thumping set and we make the rounds as best we can and hand out some fliers for the film. Of the few film makers who are there we chat mainly to the producer of a feature called “Treasure of the Black Jaguar”, like us it isn’t in competition, unlike us it had a decent budget.

In the two weeks building up to the screening I have contacted all the main media outlets in London, papers, radio, TV yet none have taken up the story. It amazes me that a UK film, produced in London, half set in London, half shot in London, premiering at a London film festival can’t even get a few inches in a daily free newspaper that relies almost exclusively on wires services and press releases to fill the space between adverts and sudoku puzzles, yet an Australian film that has no connection to London at all
(nor any of the three film festivals playing this month) gets a half page spread simply on the fact that it has finally been listed
on IMDb, the Internet Movie Database. The same goes for the London radio stations I tried. In the 6 years I spent working for
London radio stations, both BBC & Independent, it was battered into us at all times to find “the local angle” on everything, yet
even so we couldn’t get a few minutes of air time for an interview because “the listener only wants to hear famous people.”
It is funny how Paul can be “famous” enough in Colorado or Phuket or Marbella to be interviewed on the radio but not in his
home town. No wonder the UK film industry, particularly independent films, is suffering so much when it isn’t supported by
the media nor the now thankfully soon to be defunked UK Film Council.

I have also repeatedly asked a former work colleague of mine, a prominant film critic, to come to the screening but he doesn't
show. I know that had it been the more prestigous London Film Frestival a week later he would have been there.

Engorged with this frustration I am heartened at least that tickets are selling well, partly due to the one interview we did
manage to do, the one for the Raindance.tv website. Paul, Marc and I gave our first interview together and it gave me a
chance to thank Raindance for this UK Premier, which for me is rather poignant as it was a Raindance course I took a
decade ago that first inspired me to want to make films.

SATURDAY OCTOBER 09th 2010
When we screened in Phuket Paul and I spent several hours that day visiting Buddhist temples in preparation, in stark contrast I spend most of today sat behind a mixing desk in a radio station helping the nation learn the latest lower league football scores. Paul keeps texting me questions but I am unable to answer in case there is a goal in Sheffield. I finally tear out the studio barely an hour before the screening starts and head up to the cinema.

We are screening in the wonderful Apollo cinema on Lower Regents Street, always one of my favourite venues to watch films when I used to review for the very same London radio station that has now refused to interview us. I check the box office – about two-thirds sold – and wait outside. I am surprised and delighted that so many people who have already seen the film either at the cast & crew screening in July or at one of the many sales screenings over the past few months have come back to see it again – and pay for the privilege. Most have brought friends or family along as well.

Another reason the UK film industry is so on its knees is the lack of imagination from sales agents and distributors. The constant feedback we have had since March has been “I love the film but I can’t sell it,” Yet here we are selling tickets to repeat customers and those who are there by word-of-mouth and personal recommendation. The problem is how do you promote that? I was once told by a leading UK distributor that “Unless a film has zombies, dragons, helicopters, martial arts, gangster, guns, blood or Danny Dyer in it I can’t sell it.”  They are the things that would most put me off seeing a film – except maybe the dragons – yet despite our success, despite the plethora of awards, despite the life-changing effect this film has had on audiences it appears to be too difficult or more probably too much effort to release in the UK.

We will almost certainly end up doing it ourselves.

I rant something along those lines to a few people as they queue for their tickets one of whom being the delightful and incredibly supportive Bianca, better known as the Mouse Frau from Germany. She has flown over (minus her mausketiers) to see the film for the second time having previously made the cast & crew screening, and this time she has brought her mother, who doesn’t speak any English. I put her with Daniel our Swiss Art Director and hope she doesn’t get bored. Bianca is a testament to the positive effect this film has on people and she gives me an envelope inside of which is an elephant necklace. Paul, John and I did get something similar in Thailand but I was never comfortable wearing it, this one however is different, the trunk is raised up – a sign of good fortune – and I know it is given out of love for the film. I ask Bianca to whisper a good luck message in German to the elephant before I wear it. I have no idea what she says but from the smile on her face I guess it is something good.

The screening itself goes very well. It is the third and best time I have seen the film on a large screen. It is also the first time that Paul, Marc, Julie and I have seen the film together. The Q&A afterwards is curtailed by the over running of the previous film but it is positive and lively.

“The most important film to come out of Britain in the last two years.” Ian makes everyone near him aware of how he feels, I have known him for significantly longer than 2 years and never known him to say something he doesn’t mean. In the foyer I am set upon by people, some I know, some I don’t, all praising the film. I am pleased that my mother is there to see it on the big screen for the first time. The cast & crew then line up for the photo shoot courtesy of a director Ja’far (seeing the film for the second time). It is the first time I have met him but his love and enthusiasm for what we have done is clear and genuine. As the flashbulbs blink at us John makes a very accurate comment that it is “like being kind of famous for half a day.” I am glad he finally has a chance to experience it after the expensive disappointment of Phuket.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 10th 2010
For a ten day festival it was a surprise that we were given the evening slot in the main cinema on the penultimate day, it was even more of a surprise when we were offered a second screening the day after. We took it of course and about 20 or so people came, significantly fewer than last night but not bad for a bonus screening. I wasn’t one of them; instead I was getting paid to press buttons again.

After work I head to the Apollo for the awards ceremony (even though we are not nominated for anything) but I have a desire to be at one awards ceremony at least. Paul is sleeping off the all-nighter of after show drinks in the Phoenix Bar followed by the Japanese Grand Prix. He and Marc are off to Marbella tomorrow for the Film Festival and will need all the energy they can find. Julie flew home to Paris in the morning so I am left to represent the film should Raindance decide to give us an award anyway.

Amidst the Best UK Film & Best Micro Budget Film categories that we weren’t nominated for Elliot stands up and
announces a new “Distribution” award, the prize being a UK theatrical release with Apollo cinemas and Raindance
should the winning film fail to find a release any other way. This is probably the most perfect award we could ever
receive; it would solve all our problems and be a fitting end to a frustrating and so far fruitless endeavour.

However, on this occasion Do Elephants Pray? is not the name inside the envelope. Unlike Julie in LA and Santa
Cruz or Paul in Colorado I don’t get to kick my heels sprightly down the steps to grasp a symbol of collective
appreciation. The award instead goes to “Treasure of the Black Jaguar.”

For once the Elephant has been beaten by a guns and blood.

THURSDAY OCTOBER 14th 2010
It is 5.40 am and I am walking past the market at Liverpool Street Station. Today another film I am in “Umbrage”
directed by my friend Drew, is having its Premier at a UK Film Festival, the Bram Stoker Horror Festival in Whitby.
However, I am not going there, nor am I joining Steve DiMarco in going to Marbella for the European Premier of
Do Elephants Pray?, I am instead thankfully en route back to France. It has been three and half weeks since I was
last there and since I last saw my family that I miss so much. I think about the events of the previous week and the
great irony that life sometimes throws up.

In September 2007 when we were in pre production I went to the Fright Fest Film Festival in London for the UK
Premier of a film I acted in called “The Zombie Diaries.” Now, this week I have started work as a co-producer on
its sequel “World of the dead", a film that is not only fully financed but already has UK & US distribution deals in
place.

Zombies = release.
Guns & Blood = release.
Elephants = difficulties.

Maybe that distributor was right after all…? I sincerely hope not.

As I wait for my bus I open up “The Valkyries” for a third consecutive read and look to the future once more.

JH.

Raindance.TV interview