Shane Meadows film makes surprising debut

Short evolved into 70 minute 'Somers Town'

By ALI JAAFAR

A new Shane Meadows film would normally be something of an event in Blighty film circles, which makes the largely unheralded debut in the Berlin fest's Generations sidebar of his latest effort, the 70 minute "Somers Town," all the more surprising.

That's because the pic, which reunites Meadows with precocious tyke thesp Thomas Turgoose ("This Is England"), was never supposed to be a feature in the first place.

The project was initially conceived as a 20-minute short to mark the move of Eurostar, the cross channel train service that links London to Paris and Brussels, from Kings Cross station to its new home at St. Pancras.

Eurostar fully financed the project with a budget just shy of $1 million, with U.K. shingle Tomboy Films ("Dead Man's Shoes") handling producing duties.

The 26-page script by longtime Meadows collaborator Paul Fraser ("A Room for Romeo Brass," "Dead Man's Shoes") soon mushroomed, however, as Meadows kept shooting. The result has given Tomboy and Eurostar execs an unexpected, if welcome, headache.

"We don't know exactly what to do with it," said Tomboy's Barnaby Spurrier. "We were delighted and surprised it was selected by Berlin. This has grown in a genuinely organic way. Shane just kept shooting and shooting."

With an initial 10-day shooting schedule -- which was extended by one day -- and shot on 16 mm in black and white, "Somers Town" follows Turgoose's character as a young runaway who befriends a young Polish boy in the north London area of Somers Town. Kate Dickie ("Red Road") also stars, with an all-new score commissioned by Meadows, who had total creative freedom on the project. The first footage Eurostar execs saw was when Meadows presented them with a 90-minute first cut.

"We first had the idea to make a 12-minute short two years ago," said Eurostar marketing director Gary Nugent. "We didn't want an advert. We were after something cultural. Adverts come and go, but films last forever. We didn't do this as a big commercial driver. Our only ambition is to get as many people to see it as possible."

U.K.-based sales agent the Works Intl. are handling worldwide sales for the project, which was only finished days before the Berlinale kicked off. The last-minute addition isn't even mentioned on the sales company's EFM slate.

"It popped out of nowhere. It was literally a case of it being finished at four in the morning last week and someone jumping on a plane to bring it to Berlin," said a Works exec. "There's been a lot interest from buyers."

In addition to traditional distrib sales, the pic is likely to enjoy an innovative multiplatform release strategy. Execs are toying with the idea of a day-and-date release "on everything," said Nugent, while Eurostar execs are also looking into the idea of turning St. Pancras, normally bustling with thousands of travelers, into a cinema for the night for a special screening.

With the buzz around the project quickly rising, Spurrier is already having to manage expectations, which didn't even exist a week ago. "This is not the next Shane Meadows feature film," he told Variety.

That film will likely be "The King of Gypsies," about a bare-knuckled fighter from England's Midlands.