The Team and the story

Bass guitarist of Scottish cult band The Jesus and Mary Chain, turned award-winning music video director, Douglas Hart is the writer and director of Long Distance Information. Based on his own experience as a young man moving to London from East Kilbride, this has been a film Douglas has longed to make for quite some time.

Originally encouraged by the BFI 10 years ago (under their emerging directors scheme), Douglas wrote his story, but this coincided with the closure of the film funding arm of the BFI and the creation of the UK Film Council in its place. Douglas put his script to one side, while he learned the art of directing by making music films. Serendipitously, now that the UKFC are closing down and everything is moving back over to the BFI,his film has been revived! Ohna Falby (ex. Sister Films) and Beth Montague (HSI) rediscovered Doug's script in the autumn and applied to Film London's borough scheme for some help to make it. With a little support from them, Douglas was able to approach the legendary Scottish actor Peter Mullan (Trainspotting, My Name Is Joe, Neds) and with him agreeing to come on board, Douglas's passion to make the film was reignited.

We have started casting and looking for locations, and have so far brought together an incredibly impressive team of contributors and crew.

Synopsis:

Set one Christmas Day, between East Kilbride and London, "Long Distance Information" is a black comedy that explores the strained relationship between a father and his 20 year old son. Alex has lived away from home for several years now and he and his father are as distant emotionally as they are in miles. In the waning light of the afternoon Alex phones his da.

The Team so far:

writer/director:    Douglas Hart - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1519551/

producer: Beth Montague

producer: Ohna Falby - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2165475/

DOP: Stuart Bentley - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3103247/

Editor: Dan Robinson - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1925640/

Casting Director: Shaheen Baig - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0047071/

JACK: Peter Mullan - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0611932/

JEAN: Caroline Paterson - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0665477/

ALEX: Alan Tripney - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2299464/

Original music: Gruff Rhys ( Super Furry Animals) -

http://www.gruffrhys.com/

The Impact

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do,

They give you all the faults they have,

And add some extra just for you.

Get out as early as you can,

and dont have any kids yourself.  (Larkin)

This compelling film is beautifully simple and evokes a time of change, in what should be, but rarely is, one of the most profound relationships in life. It's not just about fathers and sons, strangled emotions, leaving home and coming of age, it's also the beginnings of creating your own truth, your own life. It is about realising how many others are just like you, and, as in Larkins famous poem,  seeing the dark and funny side.

The film is set between Scotland and England and yet it evokes a very universal story. 

We are amazingly fortunate to have Peter Mullan to play the role of JACK (ALEXs father). After his great success with his own film NEDS last year, he has now also garnered international acclaim and respect after the premier of Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur at Sundance .

We are also amazingly lucky to have the most talented Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals frontman) creating the score for our film. Gruff is always up to something fabulous and his music has brought the magical ingredient to every project it touches.

This film has all the ingredients to reach a worldwide audience with a powerful new outlook on leaving home - one of the rituals of life we all must face.

What We Need & What You Get

Today we have enough money and good relationships to put together a fabulous team, brainstorm, be creative, shoot and edit the film together. We are all set to start filming week commencing 21^st of March.

That is, with the kind and generous contribution of many peoples services and equipment in kind.

With your help, we will be able to feed and transport all these fabulous contributors. We will be able to pay location fees which will buy us more time on set and enable us to get the strongest performances and visuals our film deserves. We will be able to afford the tube fares and the bus fares (not to mention the train fares from Glasgow!).

With your extra help we will be able to afford to create the multi-layered sound mix, and afford to buy the rights to the music Gruff is so generously composing and recording for us. We will be able to finish the film in post production to a high enough standard, to get this film into film festivals all around the world, and enter the film into competition, to perhaps win awards, which we can all be proud of playing our part in.

There are immeasurable things like graphics, authoring, DVDs, festival entrance fees, international courier costs, postage!

With all your help we can try to ensure that others will want to and be able to see our film. The more help we get, the more we can do, and the more likely we are to be able to make the film available to a wider audience.

You are the biggest stars! Your generous donations will make you the heroes of our film. You can join in the family and share the feeling of being proud parents. Other than that, have a look at the list on the right of the page for the specifics on what we can give you in return.

Other Ways You Can Help

Blog about us, tweet or FB. If you can think of anyone else who might help, please pass on the link!