THE KICK INSIDE

So this time last year Ivan Madeira took his first short film GROW UP to the Cannes film festival to sell. He got in via the Short Film Corner, and was by far a learning experience that was mind blowing. The film was not sold, but a lot was learnt from what you should be doing whilst you’re out there… how to best spend your time and how to really get involved. You have to remember Ivan is not from the film industry and comes from managing projects for the public and third sector. It was a great eye opener and a way to juxtapose his day job and his film life and marry the two up. Also Cannes is a mental place, and the team that went out there were all newbies to it all. It was great, being baptised by fire into this world of glitz, glamour and effectively a trade show. It was bizarre. 

The Kick Inside has high ambitions, wanting to end up at Cannes is our dream. It’s not necessarily that we want to make a film to win a prestigious festival like Cannes for the sake of it… it just seems like the right place to try and take our film. Cannes has awarded prizes to South East Asian directors previously, though with some very interesting themes, that aren’t exactly reflected in The Kick Inside. And it just feels right that we would want to aim for there.

Of course, there are many amazing festivals that are out there of course, that we will all try to aim to get involved in. And well… to be honest, there is some bat shit insane films that gets shown at Cannes as well. Which is why we love it so much. 

As for 2012, we are not down there this year, as we are busy working working on the film for this year, and Cannes is not a cheap experience.  But when the film will be made and ready, we will get out there, through competition or not. So in a raise of glass to Cannes, here’s the opener of the festival… the new Wes Anderson film. 

Wes Anderson has influenced The Kick Inside greatly. Not necessarily the themes he raises or his quirky sort of timeless style, with pretty insane plots. Ivan only discovered Wes Anderson a couple of month before he decided he wanted to make a film. In particular, the intro of The Royal Tenenbaums and the the tipping point was connecting with feeling and landscape of travel of the Darjeeling Limited, which was watched with fresh eyes just days before Ivan embarked on his own train trip across Turkey to Syria… Those films directly influenced Grow Up. Though the trailer looks like Wes Anderson turned up to 5million, which could almost be paradoxical, we are excited to see this film opening Cannes. 

So we tip our hat to Cannes, and will be following and posting as regularly as we can, constantly wishing we were there. 2013 maybe? :)