Garrick Hamm is one of the most phenomenal short film directors at the moment (which, we hope develop into features). Astute, he cleverly excavates the heart of a story and showcases a stirring humanity with every scene. Each second counts in his work. From the darkly hilarious The Man Who Married Himself, staring Richard E. Grant and the absorbing Cast Offs, Hamm has solidified his talent in engaging us with the pulse of ever tale he conveys – the characters. With his latest short film, Retrospective, he brings awareness to the emotive vein trembling through war time photographs with an impressive lead by Game of Thrones actor Charles Dance.
Tell us about your character?
I play this character called Jonathan Hoyle, who’s a war photographer – or somebody who used to be a war photographer and something happened, whereby he had a kind of crisis of faith rather like a priest. And like a lot of people in his profession- Don McCullin is a prime example- after a while it kind of gets into their system. They start off with the best motives in the world. Their photographs are going to change everything and change people opinions and put an end to war and so on but of course they don’t. He realises that they’re just photographs. In the story of the film, he’s confronted with the father of one of the subjects of one of his photographs. This photograph becomes a symbol of conflict all over the world, and he is confronted by the father of the subject, who actually intends to shoot him but eventually doesn’t because he realises that Jonathan is well aware of the power of his photography- or the lack of the power of his photography - and the damage that it does to the people that perhaps know the subject of his photographs.
So tell me, what was it about the script that attracted you to the project?
It’s very well-written and it’s concise. It’s not a short film pretending to be a long film. It has a beginning, middle and an end. It’s a concise story and it comes to a very acceptable resolution, and it’s a little gem.
Garrick is a very proficient, very skilled director who’s been around for some time and there’s a lot of creative juice flowing through him.
There are some interesting locations in the film, can you tell us about them?
We filmed in an unbelievably cold location in Paddington, in the crypt of a rather extraordinary church and it works very, very well for the particular scene in the story. We also filmed in a defunct paint factory with toxic fumes. I think we should all go and have blood tests and chest x-rays after spending time there!
What do you hope people that watch this film are going to take away from it?
Well I hope that people will appreciate the value of short films. They are rather like short stories you know. If I’m sat in a location for long periods of time, rather than trying to get stuck into a novel or something, I like having a book of short stories with me you know. Sometimes they’re five pages, sometimes ten pages, sometimes two pages. You know they’re little gems and well-made short films are in that category.
With many thanks to Dance for the interview, it's clear that Retrospective and Hamm's astonishing work is moving the medium of shorts ahead. Could this be a new cinema form to invest in? (Yes, yes and thrice yes would be the case). Here, in a behind the scenes featurette, see the players at work as they commit to a stirring and powerful film.