Old Pocklingtonian penned short film to premiere at Edinburgh festival
An Old Pocklingtonian has written a short film which is now in the running for a major award.
Hugh Stubbins, who was at Pocklington School between 2000 and 2011, penned Mother Goose, which is making its World Premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
The film stars Olivier award-winning actress Sophie Thompson and another Old Pocklingtonian Ralph Ineson, who lends his voice to the character of the goose.
Mother Goose was directed by Joanna Vymeris, and is screening in the ‘Competition Shorts’ strand, from August 16-18.
Mother Goose is in the running for The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence – awarded to the best short film as judged by audience vote at the festival. The film is billed as a ‘modern day Grimm’s fairy-tale about grief, isolation… and a goose’.
Hugh said: “This is one of the first scripts I ever wrote about eight or nine years ago, and after meeting producer and director Joanna Vymeris at a party I sent a copy to her.
"After reading it she said ‘we should definitely do this’.
"It’s like a Grimm’s Fairytale for the modern day. It’s a story about a widow, a farmer’s wife who adopts a goose to fatten it up for Christmas.
"As the isolation from the rest of her family grows, she becomes obsessed with the bird.
"The project started out as very DIY, we had no money – just a desire to make it – so we started to apply for funds.
"We were lucky to win the Analog Film Fund, run by From The Silver Screen, a company that melts old film stock to extract the silver and make jewellery.
"They love filmmaking so they started this fund with Kodak and its suppliers, where filmmakers can get £10,000 of materials and stock.
"The prize meant we could get the project off the ground.
"We were lucky that my parents are farmers near Thornton, so we had a place to film the scenes, and then it was just a case of finding the actors and the crew.
"Joanna recently graduated from the National Film School and picked up a number of contacts.
"The people who came on board were enthused about filming with a goose, and she managed to pull everything together.
"We were very lucky to get Ralph on board as well. He is a megastar now after appearing in the new Fantastic Four movie, but I reached out to him and he agreed to do it.
"When I first become an actor I contacted him and he was very helpful, giving me advice on which books to read and what to do to find my way in the industry.
"It was really nice to ask him to voice the goose in the film. He was incredible, his voice is a stand-out voice and we were lucky to have him.
"My family were also involved in the project, my mum become a goose wrangler while my dad was a ‘body double’ for Sophie Thompson while driving a tractor.
"We had three different geese on set, provided by a really good animal training company. The birds came to us after they had been on set for a James Herriot film or TV show.”
After the Edinburgh International Film Festival, it is hoped that Mother Goose will continue to be screened at other festivals.