A car speeds through rain urban streets with a bassy growl, as a voice on the end of the phone asks ‘where is the gardener?‘ The driver of the car, a Vietnamese man we will only ever know as ONG CH replies ‘I’ll find him.‘ True to his word he finds the gardener, a 12 year old boy called SON, and brings him back to the cannabis farm where Ong Chu figures out the best way to punish him for leaving. What follows is a look at Son’s daily life on a makeshift cannabis farm, his reasons for attempting to escape and an exploration of what will keep him there.
Mia is a young woman who is struggling to cope with the aftermath of a traumatic event that has changed her life forever. She can’t sleep. She can’t eat. She can’t live. In her desperation she seeks out the help of a highly secretive retreat lead by a shadowy female figure who claims to have the solution to all of her problems.
The Retreat was recently selected to be a part of Oscar qualifying festivals SITGES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, competing in the New Vision section and also selected for TAMPERE FILM FESTIVAL in the Generation XYZ section. It was also featured on SHORT OF THE WEEK.
No Exposure (2019) is about Ben, a young man with a camera who is trying to do whatever he can to fund himself as a full-time carer. Shooting low budget music videos for grime artists is the closest thing to an available job and so he sets about making K-van, an aspiring rapper, a music video with his collaborators Bubzy & Jor. Ben has to endure a lively group of guys in order to get everything he needs, but it quickly becomes apparent that while K-Van and crew have similar backgrounds, they couldn’t be more different. No Exposure was recently nominated for ‘Best Short’ at the British Urban Film Festival 2019 and also received a 5 star review from UK Film Review (link below).
https://www.ukfilmreview.co.uk/post/no-exposure-indie-film-review
Marcus Anthony Thomas - Writer/Director 