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MONS 2022

Darragh Carey, Bertrand Desrochers, Rupert Baynham and Dennis Gyamfi • Co-directors, screenwriter and producer of A Brixton Tale

“We had a very small budget, which meant we only had an 18-day shoot – every day we had to be very quick on our feet”

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- The team behind the Cineuropa Award winner at the 37th Mons International Film Festival give us the low-down on how they made their gritty, South London-set movie

Darragh Carey, Bertrand Desrochers, Rupert Baynham and Dennis Gyamfi • Co-directors, screenwriter and producer of A Brixton Tale
Clockwise from top left: Darragh Carey, Bertrand Desrochers, Dennis Gyamfi and Rupert Baynham

Wealthy YouTuber Leah chooses shy youth Benji as the subject of her Brixton-based documentary. They fall for each other, but the desire for edgy footage leads them down a violent path. We met with directors Darragh Carey and Bertrand Desrochers, screenwriter Rupert Baynham and producer Dennis Gyamfi to talk about their film A Brixton Tale [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Darragh Carey, Bertrand Des…
film profile
]
, which won the Cineuropa Award at the 37th Mons International Film Festival.

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Cineuropa: How did the film originate?
Darragh Carey:
Rupert, Bertrand and I all met at film school in London. We hit it off quite soon and made a lot of terrible short films together [laughs]. Rupert was working on a feature-film script all the way through school.

What was the inspiration behind the story?
Rupert Baynham:
I’m from London, but I went to a sort of “Hogwarts-esque”, posh English school. I was a teenager when British films like Kidulthood [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
came out. All of my classmates were obsessed with these urban, grimy, kitchen-sink dramas, probably for all the wrong reasons. I always thought that it was a bit odd. The whole idea of fetishising that culture planted the seeds for the story of A Brixton Tale.

Bertrand Desrochers: Rupert had been working on a script. We read it and liked it. It was set in Brixton, so we decided that we would work with people from the community there. This is when we got Dennis involved. He became the executive producer and story editor. The themes of the film talked to him as much as they did to us. He had lots of insights about how we could bring more authenticity to it. He put us in touch with some of the actors, such as Rose Kerr, who plays the mother, and Dexter Padmore, who plays the cousin. We worked together for a year with him to make the film as authentic as possible, so that it could also speak to the people from that neighbourhood.

Dennis Gyamfi: I met with the guys, and they were open-minded enough to listen and take on the ideas that were given to them. Because a lot of the time, especially with writers, they can be a bit reticent to change their story. In that sense, it helped the film to become more authentic and to include not just my voice, but also other people’s voices from the community. We asked people from the community for their opinions, and they are actually credited as script editors.

What was the film set like?
DC:
We had a pretty big crew. There were people from about 30 different countries. Lots of the crew were people who had never worked together before and who were new to filmmaking. It was pretty much everyone’s first feature.

BD: Also, we had a very small budget, meaning that we had an 18-day shoot, which is quite short. Every day we had to be very quick on our feet. We had about 100 scenes written, and when we came off the shoot, we had a total of 89 scenes filmed – we ran out of time. We had to figure out how to tell a story with what we had, and it was a big stress for us. Thankfully, the whole team believed in the movie and gave 110%. It was a passion project for everybody. Without the whole team believing in it, we would not have made it.

What was the editing process like?
DC:
The script had a certain pace, but then the pace once we had our footage was so different because we had to cut so many scenes during the shoot. What worked on paper sometimes did not work in the edit. There was supposed to be a whole section in the beginning when we learned more about Leah’s backstory, which we shot. And then, in the edit, we thought that, actually, no one cared. It was interesting on paper, and then boring on screen.

BD: Since we had such a short space of time to shoot, and since we had to take out some storylines which did not make sense, we checked what film festivals required and saw that the minimum length requirement for a feature film is 75 minutes. The movie ended up being 76 minutes long, and we figured that this was the most we could have with the budget that we had.

Are you working on a new project?
RB:
We are doing bits of everything together, and also on our own. We are just trying to get contracts. We are also looking for funds for our next films. We are working on several projects: one set in Dublin, one in London, one in Montreal, one that has parts set in Vietnam…

DG: Between us, we have got lots of ideas, and I believe that in amongst all of these, one of them is an Oscar winner [laughs]. So, to whoever has got the money, believe in us, and come and join us. Support us – we will make it happen.

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