by Graeme Stirling
Fresh from the wake of the Independent Spirit Awards – something of a let-down for all concerned – we at I’m With Geek now have a chance to look at some truly indie film-making. There’s always something lovely about a Kickstarter-funded project, and SOLA is a prime candidate for a satisfying success. Although the service has proven that people will get behind anything, this is the sort of thing we like to see – a film project out of reach of the studio executives we love to hate and one that allows a group of people to create something new without market-minded compromise.
Fresh from the wake of the Independent Spirit Awards – something of a let-down for all concerned – we at I’m With Geek now have a chance to look at some truly indie film-making. There’s always something lovely about a Kickstarter-funded project, and SOLA is a prime candidate for a satisfying success. Although the service has proven that people will get behind anything, this is the sort of thing we like to see – a film project out of reach of the studio executives we love to hate and one that allows a group of people to create something new without market-minded compromise.
One such team, the good people at Mordue Pictures who hope to bring SOLA to our screens, contacted us about their potentially upcoming picture. On the surface, it seems simple enough – a post-apocalyptic survival tale on deserted British streets, akin in atmosphere to the likes of 28 Days Later or, depending on the tone, the misery of The Road. The writers, however, insist that there’s more to it than that.
Themes and motifs, beloved to writers and visual artists, are like kryptonite to the men and women in charge of film budgets. They want those immense piles of cash raked right back in, and the risk of being seen as boring or condescending your audience is not on the table. Darren Arronofsky’s The Fountain is a perfect example of such a venture gone wrong, leaving many critics and cinema-goers cold. In the current film climate, even lauded masterworks like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are called out for being slow and unengaging and only long-term veterans like Le Carre and his screenwriting colleagues are allowed to test such waters. It seems, then, that this grassroots community approach is the way to go for those with earnest ideas and slightly slimmer wallets.
Themes and motifs, beloved to writers and visual artists, are like kryptonite to the men and women in charge of film budgets. They want those immense piles of cash raked right back in, and the risk of being seen as boring or condescending your audience is not on the table. Darren Arronofsky’s The Fountain is a perfect example of such a venture gone wrong, leaving many critics and cinema-goers cold. In the current film climate, even lauded masterworks like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are called out for being slow and unengaging and only long-term veterans like Le Carre and his screenwriting colleagues are allowed to test such waters. It seems, then, that this grassroots community approach is the way to go for those with earnest ideas and slightly slimmer wallets.
SOLA, most likely to be a fairly slow burner, follows a female protagonist named Eden as she navigates the aftermath of an unknown apocalyptic event and faces the same sort of threats we’ve come to expect from this class of film, recounting her previous life in civilization along the way. She does, however, have another antagonist to deal with – that of clinical depression and the destructive influence it can have over a seemingly stable life. The more astute might already have spotted the theme here – the use of the pre-apocalyptic world as a metaphor for this false stability and the ruins of the post-event phase as the grief waiting below the surface, particularly the loneliness – the plot explicitly invokes human extinction – felt by those who live with it. Project lead Luke Mordue is well-versed in such subject matter, as a diagnosed sufferer of bi-polar disorder with a history of anxiety issues. Rather than merely entertain his audience, he hopes to bring this motif right to the fore.
Reception to this could go either way, meaning either great satisfaction or tremendous disappointment for those behind it. The key problem facing those suffering from this and other related disorders is the tendency of those around them to see them as behavioral rather than genuine medical issues. There is nothing worse to hear at a low point than lighten up or snap out of it. Those who know someone with bi-polarity are lucky enough to have a better idea of how it affects people and how they might be able to help. Others may be familiar with the attempts to raise awareness by higher-profile sufferers like Stephen Fry, and should be aware that quality of life and negative attitudes have little if anything to do with it. If SOLA can help get this across whilst keeping audiences invested in the fate of its protagonist, then that’s a thoroughly good thing.
The results may be a while away, but taking an interest can already aid the project’s fate – there are several hours left on the Kickstarter campaign (it ends 7:45 pm tonight!) and donations from earnest indie cinema fans are welcome. More information is available at morduepictures.com.
Check out the Kickstart Campaign here!
Reception to this could go either way, meaning either great satisfaction or tremendous disappointment for those behind it. The key problem facing those suffering from this and other related disorders is the tendency of those around them to see them as behavioral rather than genuine medical issues. There is nothing worse to hear at a low point than lighten up or snap out of it. Those who know someone with bi-polarity are lucky enough to have a better idea of how it affects people and how they might be able to help. Others may be familiar with the attempts to raise awareness by higher-profile sufferers like Stephen Fry, and should be aware that quality of life and negative attitudes have little if anything to do with it. If SOLA can help get this across whilst keeping audiences invested in the fate of its protagonist, then that’s a thoroughly good thing.
The results may be a while away, but taking an interest can already aid the project’s fate – there are several hours left on the Kickstarter campaign (it ends 7:45 pm tonight!) and donations from earnest indie cinema fans are welcome. More information is available at morduepictures.com.
Check out the Kickstart Campaign here!
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