Shelter

Synopsis :

“Can I stay?”

Suzanne arrives at Dylanʼs flat from nowhere. Like a child in a woman’s body, she has no concept of jealousy, sex or death. All she knows is her devotion to the man who gives her shelter. And while she knows that in the outside world Dylan is a bad man, she is happy as long as he comes home, and as long as he brings back food. But Dylan doesnʼt bring her food anymore... 

“Dylan... Iʼm hungry Dylan...”

A few words from the director :

I wrote Shelter almost instinctively, in three hours on a Friday evening. The first image entered my mind, and everything else followed. The story haunted me in the following days and weeks, as I searched for it’s meaning, and I hope the same will happen to those who watch it.

I don’t want to write too much about the film here, as I’d love you to discover the story for yourselves, not in words, but in moving pictures… But here are a few things I will share with you, that will hopefully give you enough of a taste to want to see more:

-The film takes place entirely within the apartment of Dylan, we are left to discover and imagine their lives outside of the apartment through Suzanne’s eyes and words.

-Suzanne paints a tree on Dylan’s walls, it grows during the course of the film, as she quietly makes his apartment her own.

-Suzanne may seem to be innocent, or naïve, but there’s something deep down in her instincts, in all our instincts I think, that isn’t innocent at all… 

My intention is to make a film that stays with the audience like an unsettling dream.

With the story, the crew and the cast we’ve assembled to make the film, we have a really beautiful film in the making. 

About the cast :

Lizzie Saint Septembre - Suzanne

Credit : Eric Keller

Rather than try and describe her, I’d encourage you to take a look at some of Lizzie’s work as a model & a photographer, I think it will be immediately apparent why I wanted to cast her as Suzanne. To me her face carries a combination of innocence and history. There’s something not of this world about her. In person, she walks like a broken doll, she is simultaneously nervous and disarmingly open. Once I had met her and talked about the film with her, I really couldn’t imagine anyone else in the role.

Paddy Sherlock - Dylan

Paddy is an actor, singer and musician with great talent and incredible charm. To me, there’s something much more sinister in the bad man who knows how to smile; who knows how to hold his friend close in order to stab him in the back. Not only does Paddy carry that charm on his face, he acts with a presence and subtlety of gesture that is going to beautifully reveal the weight of his world outside.  

A few words from the producers :

The film is full of simplicity, Suzanne talks as a child and Dylan just accepts her in his life. 

But this simplicity has a many layers of meaning, a more complex understanding, and this complexity will allow each member of the audience to perceive the film in different ways.

I also fell in love with the images in the script. I believe that a film must have a graphic intention; it must be visually attractive. And Suzanne’s tree promises to provide nothing but beautiful images. This image has many symbols and it’s growth has for me the most important significance of all, it represents Suzanne, and all that her instincts lead her to be. 

These are two characters that are bound by nothing, that don’t need words to understand each other. While their relationship may be complex, they, simply, accept one another…

The crew :

To know more about our previous work, and that of our talented cast and crew, please take a look at the following links :

Technical crew

Director

Jethro Massey www.jethromassey.com

Cinematographer

Isarr Eiriksson  www.isarreiriksson.com

Production designer         

Eva Connaughton www.cargocollective.com/evaconnaughton

Costume

Liv Monaghan www.livmonaghan.com/

Cast

Suzanne

Lizzie Saint Septembre www.lizziesaintseptembre.fr

Dylan

Paddy Sherlock www.paddysherlock.com

Producers

 Mandel Brothers Productions

www.mandelbros.com