Director Statement

​

After making 4 shorts in my adoptive hometown of Manchester, UK, I decided to go back to my home city of Lima, Peru, to make a passion project that I've had on my mind for 5+ years. I pitched the script to my former Film Teacher, Paul Keller, at the (British) high-school where I attended growing up in Lima, and he helped me pitch it to the school's trust board to try and get financing for the film.

​

I wanted to give back to the school and particularly the film programme, which really kickstarted my true interest in becoming a filmmaker. So the idea was to give the film students (16/17 year olds) a "work experience" style of opportunity, where they could work on set with us and learn from a professional, very experienced crew, on how a "real" film set works. Apart from some small assistant roles, they would also be in charge of making a behind-the-scenes short documentary of the shoot, to include in the film's press material for festivals and to give them hands on experience with cameras and editing software. We also casted our two brilliant leads out of the school's drama students.

​

With some financing secured, we managed to put together a crew of some of the most established film professionals in the Peruvian film industry, as well as supremely talented up-and-coming crew.

It was a very gruelling, 3-day shoot in the hot desert of Lima, but we managed to realise our goal of making this film, and telling this story, a film of a genre slightly different to what usually comes out of Peru.

Making this film was a huge sacrifice for me - my job in Manchester, most of my savings, so that I could go to Peru for 3 months and complete pre-production and production, but the result speaks for itself. Working with British people in the roles of; executive producer, colourist, music composer, and sound designer, I was able to make this my first of hopefully many future co-production between UK and Peru, something that is a long term career goal of mine.

​

The film is incredibly personal as it was shot near the beach house where I spent all of my summers growing up, which we recently had to say goodbye to. I wanted to express what a magical, almost surreal place it was, and what it meant - and still means - to me.