Wasted Poster Pic_ Mark Gillis
A feature film that is to be shot in New Cross and has been funded through crowd sourcing will begin shooting this month.
‘Wasted’ will be filmed mainly in Telegraph Hill, New Cross, and is the brainchild of local director Mark Gillis.
It follows a man desperately trying to keep his family together as he struggles with unemployment and a dwindling cash flow.
With a estimated cost of £40,000, the film is being is being funded partly by equity investors and partly by Kickstarter, a crowd-sourcing forum that encourages members of the public to donate money to creative projects.
Gillis said: “With a cast of brilliant, very experienced but not necessarily high profile actors it would be difficult to get the film funded through the normal channels.”
Last month the film received an anonymous £500 pledge through the Kickstarter website.
Gillis said: “No idea who they are, they just said they really liked the subject, that it was covering real issues and that it wasn’t going to be another British gangster film or ‘rom com’.”
Gillis, who moved to Telegraph Hill in 2006, penned ‘Wasted’ in response to the recent ‘scroungers vs strivers’ rhetoric in UK politics, and felt the area in New Cross was the perfect setting for a film on the subject.
He said: “The area seemed perfect as a backdrop to the film as there are pockets of very deep hardship among other very affluent enclaves, and wherever you are in this area you are rarely far from a view of all the banking HQs at Canary Wharf. In fact in some places the bank’s skyscrapers seem to be looming up out of the end of the road.”
“I thought the closeness of the centres of such wealth and power, to scenes of really quite severe deprivation was a very interesting juxtaposition. It’s almost visually telling us the story of inequality that is so much a part of the society we are becoming.”
As well as providing the setting for his film, Gillis has also cast actors with a connection to south east London.
He said: “John Nettleton who plays Sam is probably best known for playing the very urbane boss of Sir Humphrey in ‘Yes Minister’, but was actually born in Sydenham and went to school in Catford before being evacuated to Wales during the war.”
“Similarly, Jean Reeve who plays Jean was born in Croydon, and Tracey Wilkinson who plays Lorraine currently lives in East Dulwich, as does a member of the camera crew, so there is a strong south east London connection!”
The cast – which includes actors from the Harry Potter films and experienced stage performers – and crew, are working unpaid until equity investors have been fully reimbursed.
