“What if upon arriving at the Emerald City, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz was denied entry by border control?,” wondered north-east film director of Children of Chronos, Jamie Sundance.
After hearing many refugee stories from across the world over the past few years, Jamie decided to tackle the topic of immigration from a fantasy perspective with his new movie which will be screened at film festival in London this weekend.
“I wanted this film – Children of Chronos – to be a fairytale cut short and to play on the clichés and expectations but also introduce a cold harsh reality,” said the filmmaker.
“The city in this film is very much a manifestation of indifference.”
The film tells the story of a young woman who, after losing her family in a battle, finds an orphan girl who she takes under her wing. After arriving at the mystical far away city of Chronos, they discover that the great stories of the city aren’t quite true.
You can watch the trailer below:
Creating visual effects in spare time
The short film was produced by Aberdeen’s Crow House Projects – now Crow House Films – and partially funded by Aberdeen City Council.
Due to a tight budget, which was spent on shooting the film in the north-east – including at Torry Battery and on Balmedie Beach in 2018 – it took Jamie years to create visual effects himself in his spare time.
He said: “We made The Anatomist (a film set in 19th century Aberdeen at the time of bodysnatchers) the year before and we got some funding. The next year we only got half the funding for Children of Chronos.
“With only half the budget, all of it went into the production – most of it actually went into feeding our 50 volunteers on set.
“So after that, I spent two years doing all the VFX (visual effects) myself.”
Children of Chronos wins at sci-fi film festivals
Once the film was completed, Jamie submitted it to a range of festivals all over the world.
He said: “The film was screened in Italy, France and even Colombia and Iran.
“We were pretty smart with our approach – we didn’t go for the big massive festivals because we don’t have the budget or clout for it.We targeted niche sci-fi festivals and the film was well received.
“We won an award recently in Wisconsin – we received an award for the best adventure fantasy VFX short, which was really good.”
Jamie and the film’s producer Nicci Thompson are very excited about the movie being screened at Wild Indie Sci-Fi & Fantasy Film Festival, which takes place in London this Saturday.
Jamie said: “We’ve got a bit of an entourage going down from Aberdeen – we may take up a whole row in the cinema.
“We’ve been selected for all these film festivals, but we weren’t able to go anywhere.
“Usually, you get to have fun, go to different countries, speak to different filmmakers, but all the festivals have been online this year.
“We’re up for a few awards at this festival.”
The film will be screened in an IMAX movie theatre, which is something both Nicci and Jamie are thrilled about and cannot wait to see their film on the big screen.
Opportunity to showcase north-east actors
Producer Nicci was keen to showcase the north-east and provide local actors with great opportunities.
He said: “We believe that Aberdeen and our local region should be shown more and we want to see more projects coming out of the north-east.
“As a lecturer and educator in film (Nicci is a lecturer and module coordinator in Film and Media at RGU), we lose a lot of our talent to down south or abroad – I was one of them, I went to a film school in the US – because the opportunities aren’t here.
“So with Children of Chronos and Crow House Films, our aim is not just to tell really good stories but also to involve local people. We try to give people the authentic industry experience they need and want it to develop their skills.”