Emmanuel House premiere new short film to launch winter fundraising campaign

Emmanuel House have been operating since 1976, and this year, for their winter fundraising campaign, they decided to do something a bit different. After seeing their work on the documentary Soul Boy (about a young lad in care who discovers Northern Soul), the charity turned to filmmakers Luke Radford and Toby Curson to make a promotional video. What started out as a plan for something approaching traditional fundraising messages, became a moving, ten-minute short film, shot across Nottingham over the summer. We met the filmmakers, and Emmanuel House's Fundraising Office Rosie Needham-Smith to find out more.

Toby and Luke knew each other through friends and part of the filmmaking circuit in the East Midlands, but they first worked together when Luke asked Toby to help out on Outlawed, the action film he directed with stunt man Adam Collins. Toby says, "Luke was also teaching at Confetti at the same time, and some jobs came up and Luke recommended me. Ever since then we've been closer friends and worked together more".

Luke always had a passion for films and went to Confetti as a student. "And that kinda changed my life a little bit - gave me direction and motivation to take it a bit more seriously. Before that I thought, 'Who becomes a filmmaker in Nottingham?', y'know?!"

After they left Confetti, they ended up working together on a few decent projects before they won the pitch to film Soul Boy. This work, which was screened on the BBC earlier this year, is what caught Emmanuel House's attention.

After they accepted the brief, Toby and Luke went away to talk to staff and service users at Emmanuel House in order to research how their story would unfold. "We wanted it to feel rooted in reality," Luke said. "The last thing we wanted was people who work at Emmanuel House to watch the film that we made and feel like 'Nah, that's not what really happens here.'"

It was initially expected to be a traditional 2-3 minute advert, but as Luke goes on to explain, it soon turned into something bigger. "We got a bit carried away really. We had a wish list of actors we wanted to work with, and different creatives.

Toby expands, "We wanted to let the story breathe a bit more, and for it to really be effective we really had to understand who the characters were and go on a journey with them." The result is a short film, just under 10 minutes long, which will have its premiere on Zoom this Friday night (6th November).

The film follows Gemma, who becomes homeless due to circumstances beyond her control. Luke and Toby built her story by talking to Hannah, an outreach worker Emmanuel House. Rosie explains a bit more about Hannah's role. "She's an outreach worker, and she specialises in female rough sleepers. She's worked with over 40 different women across Nottingham, and she will literally go out on the streets, into doorways, along the canal, to find them and see what support they need." For Toby and Luke, it gave them access to to something real and truthful, rather than concocting a straight work of fiction which may not have resonated as much.

In order to maintain an authentic voice, they also steered away from writing a script. It was lucky therefore that many of their actors were comfortable with improvisation due to their training. "The majority of the cast were TV Workshop alumni," says Luke. "We wanted to have an idea of what the story was, what the narrative was... but in terms of what happened in each scene we wanted the actors to be able to play with it a little bit, and one amazing strength of TV Workshop is their ability to improv."

It made the shoot a little scarier, a little further beyond the control of the directors, but it worked out for the best. Toby says "We have to give credit to Will, the Director of Photography for being on his toes and being able to capture those moments."

With narration by local playwright Sophie Ellerby, the piece feels personal, and has a special kind of energy. Rosie believes this is because the film centres on people who are often at the margins. "It's people that quite often aren't on screen. It's important that we told the stories we don't often hear. The reasons that Gemma becomes homeless aren't ones that you might expect, it's not the stereotypical portrayal of a homeless person."

Rosie hopes, aside from donating to the charity's winter appeal, the film will make people understand the subtleties that contribute to homelessness, "It's not always about making bad decisions, it's not about being lazy, and it's not always about drugs and alcohol, which is a big stereotype around homelessness. Quite often one of the biggest contributing factors is the breakdown of relationships, which is the main angle of Gemma's story."

A planned in-person screening for the film at Broadway Cinema has now been changed to an online premiere via Zoom on Friday 6th November at 6pm which will include a Q&A with Toby and Luke and members of the Emmanuel House Team.

FIND OUT MORE AND REGISTER TO ATTEND THE SCREENING HERE.