Patriot

Director Eva Riley

Court Métrage, Festival de Cannes 2015

“Patriot is about an eleven year old girl Hannah who, against the backdrop of racial tensions within her English community, meets a young boy from a forbidden part of town.”- director Eva Riley

GFM:
Looking at some of your previous films alongside Patriot, it seems that you’re drawn to topics where young adults are faced with difficult situations.

Eva:
I’m drawn to working with young actors. I think being young is a very interesting time; lots of life changing events can happen, where people’s ideas about life are crystalised. I think that is a very interesting area to explore. When it works, young actors can bring a beautiful naturalism to the performance as their reactions can be very pure and unaffected.

GFM:
How was it working with the young actress that played Hannah, Halle Kidd?

Eva:
One of the most important things when working with young people is the casting stage, and it was a really long process until we met her! I saw lots of different young girls, but Halle was very natural in her auditions and had a striking presence on camera. Although she’s very different from Hannah in terms of her background, there were certain elements of her personality that were similar to how I imagined Hannah’s character. This made the shooting process much simpler and it was really easy working with her on set. We had a bit of time beforehand where we talked about the story, and very loosely talked through different scenes together. This really helped when it came to working together on set. Mostly, I just let her do what felt natural to her, and tried to create an atmosphere on set which was fairly calm to allow her and the other actors to feel unrestricted and un-self-conscious.

GFM:
Can you talk about achieving the film’s distinctive visual style and your collaboration with your DP, David Pimm?

Eva:
Dave and I got put together through the National Film and Television School, as he was also a student there on the cinematography course. It was really nice working with him because he was excited about the idea visually, and also about telling the story right from the beginning. We had a really good back-and-forth exchange of ideas in pre-production and on set and were very open and trusting with each other – which is very important to me!

I guess the final visual style came from us talking first and foremost about the story; what we wanted to get from certain story points and emotions. Some images in the film I already had very clearly in my head, for example the scene where Hannah is walking through the fields with her flag on her back, I knew what I wanted there for a long time.The most important thing was giving the young actors enough space for their performance, and to base the visual style around their performance. There is a scene where they are boxing, and I didn’t have that storyboarded. Dave and I just knew what framings we wanted, and what basic look we wanted for him to get the action and the performance of the kids.

GFM:
What are your thoughts about the short film format and its role in your career?

Eva:
It’s been everything in my career so far, because I’ve only made short films. I love short film as a form in itself, and I don’t just see it as a stepping stone to making feature films – though I do want to make a feature in the future. I’ve watched short films for many years, and there are a lot of films and filmmakers that I’m really passionate about. I like the short film format as a way to show a moment in someone’s life, and really hone in on a particular day, or just a few hours of someone’s life. Although I’ve done films that have been set over a couple of days, I prefer to make films that are set over a very small time period, just so you get the full emotional impact of that moment in someone’s life.

GFM:
What was your experience like finding out you’re film was accepted into the Cannes competition?

Eva:
I was totally shocked when I got the phone call, and absolutely over the moon. Film festivals are a major currency being a young director and Cannes is somewhere I had always wanted to screen – it’s a film lover’s paradise! Apart from anything else, I’m really excited to get there and meet everyone and show my film alongside my team who are attending with me.