Up-and-coming directors and producers to be showcased at local cinema
AS cinemas across the UK close down there is no better time for local film fans to support up-and-coming directors, producers and writers. Especially the indie kind.
And now there is a great chance to do just that.
Philophobia, which means ‘fear of falling in love’, is the debut feature film of small town adolescence from young writer/director Guy Davies. Set and filmed in his home town of Stroud in the Gloucestershire countryside it is an authentic coming-of-age romance rooted in experience.
Respected film and TV website Screenfish said of the film: ‘Engaging performances from its cast of youth serve as a window into the heart of an age where teens are caught between the life they have known and the life they have not yet discovered.
One week of high school remains for Kai, an aspiring writer, and his friends. How they choose to spend it awakens sexual desires, costs one of them their life and leaves them all changed forever.
A truly independent project, Philophobia was made possible by a dozen Stroud-based investors and spearheaded by production company Fablemaze.
Continuing in this indie spirit the filmmakers have decided to launch their own theatrical release into 32 independent UK cinemas starting on 30 October, The Mallard Cinema being one of them.
‘From October 2019 right up to the pandemic shutting things down in March 2020 we screened Philophobia to festival audiences who were consistently passionate in their response, so we were determined to give the film a proper cinema release in the UK,’ said Fablemaze producer Matt Cook.
‘The film is set in my home town and shot in the high school I attended as a teenager,’ said Guy. ‘It’s inspired by life experience and is about love, friendship, sex and that uncertain transition period in life before becoming an adult.’
Philophobia has won 12 awards on the festival circuit, including the San Diego International Film Festival, where it won both Best Global Cinema and the Lite Coin Audience Choice award and Best Feature Film at the Lift Off Global Film Awards in London.
The film stars Joshua Glenister, Harry Lloyd (The Theory of Everything, Legion), James Faulkner (Game Of Thrones) and Alexander Lincoln (Emmerdale).
Philophobia (15) will be showing at The Mallard from Friday 30 October.
(Identification may be required as proof of age for rated films.)
