‘Creativity in Crisis… Love is the Answer’

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Local film company launches its latest film on the theme of the artist at a crossroads

A local film director has warned that the 'personal voice' of British film is being lost because of editorial interference from corporate funding organisations.

At the launch of his latest film, (hosted at Westminster by Ealing and Acton MP Rupa Huq), Gareth Jones, writer, director and actor, declared the ‘resourceful range’ of British film ‘impoverished’.

DELIRUM, the third film of the D-trilogy, which narrates the story of a composer as he struggles to write a Requiem for his college centenary, is Jones’s response to the ‘impoverished’ range of British cinema. As the film was produced free from editorial interference at any stage, Jones’s personal voice is unhindered. In fact, somewhat remarkably the trilogy was shot and produced by Scenario Films, an Acton-based company, with no public support or state subsidy. Jones has explained that it is perhaps owing to the advanced state of technology today that high-level feature film has become almost affordable for the very first time.

All three films of the trilogy explore the human struggle to overcome one’s own mediocrity, a message that Scenario Films believes can resonate with every viewer. Why a trilogy? Jones explained that the trilogy allowed him to portray ‘a move through the art forms’. Although the films have different plots and casts, DESIRE (2009), DELIGHT (2013) and DELIRIUM (2016) all narrate the stories of an artist at a crossroads, and express the trilogy’s message; ‘creativity in crisis… love is the answer’.

Rupa Huq MP

In a previous interview with D&C Film in 2011, Jones said, ‘British feature film is looking for a new resourcefulness and new audiences’.

The eclectic mix of talent in his films certainly demonstrates Jones’s commitment to offering this ‘new resourcefulness’ as actors and actresses are used from Continental Europe and Britain alike. In DESIRE, Tella Kpomahou, a French-Beninese actress with little English plays the au pair, in DELIGHT French actress Jeanne Balibar performs the leading role and Alisa Liubarskaya, a cellist from Minsk, Belarus stars in DELIRIUM.

Yet as Jones and his wife, Fiona Howe, producer and composer, previously lived in Chiswick and currently live in Acton, several people involved in the production of the films are locally based. Sarah Grundy, a top makeup designer based in Chiswick, who has also worked with Matt LeBlanc, worked on the first film of the trilogy. Alison Rayner, an Ealing-based opera singer, acted and sang in the third film and Julian Gallant, a local conductor and pianist, played Head of Music and was the musical director. Gallant’s son and wife also had musical roles in the film and Fran Stafford, from Chiswick, was a featured choral singer in the film.

The audience at the screening

DESIRE, the first film, is actually shot entirely in Jones and Howe’s own home in Acton. It is a story about love, and of course desire. Jones has said it ‘attempts to rescue sexuality from the ghetto into which pornography has banished it’. Fiona Howe, producer and composer, described the film as a story about ‘domestic abuse… and liberation’. Notably the film has a small cast, which Jones has said allowed him to create the intensity he needed.
The second film, DELIGHT, is a war film without violence, a study of the psychological damage that war inflicts upon its survivors. Having revealed the terrors of writing block in DESIRE, the second film of the trilogy examines the effects of over-exposure to violence through the story of an ex-war photographer.

Jones himself actually stars in the final film, DELIRIUM, unintentionally. He explained that he never meant to perform in one of his films but did because of how things worked out. He added that he could not have acted and directed had it not been for his cinematographer, Alex Ryle, whom he had total confidence in.

When asked about the casting for his films, Jones explained that in DELIRIUM he cast only musicians. He expressed the importance of casting musicians in these roles and teaching them to act rather than casting actors and teaching them how to perform.

The film was shot at Royal Holloway and will be shown at the London Screenings between 20th-23rd June courtesy of Film London and the BFI.

Lucy Barnes

June 16, 2016