Still from ‘The End, The Beginning’ | Dir. Archie Chew | Photo by Mark Chew
The End, The Beginning, the capstone project of 2019 Master of Arts Screen graduate Archie Chew is set to make its world premiere in competition at Uppsala Short Film Festival in Sweden. The film is nominated for the Academy-accredited Best Children’s Film prize and will screen this October at the annual festival, which features more than 300 short films across fiction, documentary, experimental works and animation.
Director Archie Chew developed the concept for the film with fellow 2019 Master of Arts Screen graduates, producer Alicia Easaw-Mamutil and writer Samuel Herriman. They worked on the short with a team of current students and recent alumni, including cinematographer Nick Najdov (Master of Arts Screen, 2019; Diploma in Camera, 2017), editor Xanthe Dobbie (Master of Arts Screen, 2019), composer Jorde Heys (Master of Arts Screen, 2019), third assistant director Peter Skinner (Master of Arts Screen, 2019; Graduate Diploma in Directing, 2013), sound recordists Tahira Donohoe-Bales (Bachelor of Arts Screen: Production, 2018) and Jeremy Nicholas (Master of Arts Screen, 2019), first assistant cameraperson Bebi Zekirovski (Graduate Certificate Screen: Cinematography, 2017; Diploma in Camera Fundamentals, 2016), second assistant cameraperson Jamie McVicker (Master of Arts Screen, 2019), assistant editor Hannah Smith (Diploma in Editing, 2017) and colourist Michael Angelis (Graduate Certificate Screen: Cinematography, 2017).
Freakishly prophetic – described by the creators as “a pre-COVID film about being isolated indoors” – The End, The Beginning takes place in the picture-book town of Collector and follows a young girl and her gang of rogue environmentalists, who are trying to save the planet as the world goes into lockdown. The girl’s father being the main target of their rebellion, the film centres around their father/daughter relationship which hangs in the balance.
Find out more about the film here.
See the full Uppsala Short Film Festival program here.