US distributor buys local filmmaker's first film

Saturday 21 October 2017

A Jersey-born filmmaker has seen his ambitions for his first feature movie go "above and beyond" when it was picked up by Gravitas Ventures, a US-based distributor, who are now showing it in mainstream cinemas.

25-year-old, Helier Bissell-Thomas developed and directed 'Kaufman's Game' when he was just 20-years-old and a student at Staffordshire University.

The 90-minute long movie tells the story of Stanley (Jye Frasca) an aspiring boxer wishing to get ahead of his game and who finds himself "way too deep" in the mafia underworld.

"It is about determination, being your own worst enemy and fate. It is very fatalistic," says the director.

Passionate about film noir and influenced by the work of Franz Kafka, Helier combined the two to try and "reimagine the London gangster thriller genre."

"I wanted to do something different than the recurring style of tough guys and testosterone-driven movies. I love watching movies like Snatch but I wanted to change the style slightly and go back to the roots of classic film noir. It has something different to offer in the gangster-genre menu." 

Pictured: Kaufman's Game tells the story of aspiring boxer Stanley who find himself mixing with the mafia.

Helier caught the movie bug when he was only three years old when he saw Steven Spielberg's "Hook" and it never left him. "I remember feeling compelled and watching it over and over again until the VHS wore off. Then when I was about seven or eight I was given a book which described how the world behind the camera worked. That is how I learned about the role of the director for the first time and I fell in love with it as my dream job." 

During his teens he directed short movies, and even a feature movie, which he had to put aside as the project was too expensive.

He then picked Staffordshire University as the best place to study Arts and Creative Technologies because it was the only university to allow students to propose their thesis. He chose to direct his first feature length movie and enrolled most of his friends to take part in it.

"It was a combination. Many of them were classmates and there were also friends with whom I had worked on corporate videos or short movies previously. Having no budget for the music, I had the amazing chance of working with Philippe Jakko, a composer from Paris, who wrote all the music for the movie, £1,000s worth, for free."

Pictured: Helier Bissell-Thomas directing his actors on set.

After receiving festival success, "Kaufman's Game" caught the eye of the distributors at Gravitas Ventures who decided to buy it. They are now distributing it in independent as well as mainstream cinemas. The movie has already been shown in four multiplexes in London with another eight set to show it in the coming weeks. As for the director, he is over the moon. "I've been incredibly lucky. It is so tough. It has gone above and beyond what I thought it would be. To be purchased was amazing but to get such a distribution is like the icing on the cake. It is music to a director's ears, it was so unexpected.

"Gravitas Ventures were recommended to me as being very honest distributors and I am very happy to work with them. It was a real compliment to be acquired by them and for them to say that I can only get better from my debut film which they describe as 'highly commercial'."

While every director worries about their movie capturing the audience's interest, Helier says that attention to detail is the secret. "As long as you focus on making each frame tell the story as well as possible, you will have good material to cut the movie out of." For inspiration, the young filmmaker looks out to Stanley Kubrick. "You can learn a huge amount from watching his movies. He made some really bold choices in cinema. His movies were highly commercial and still stand the test of time. This is the level of innovation all young filmmakers should be striving to."

As 'Kaufman's Game' does the round in cinemas, and will hopefully be shown in Jersey - "I love Cineworld, it is a great cinema, a great multiplex!," says Helier - the filmmaker is already thinking about his next movie, the script of which he wrote at the age of 18. "It was a big project and had no means to do it. It is definitely off the shelf now. I am meeting with potential financiers, the distributors are interested in it and I am informally auditioning with actors to discuss roles. It will be another thriller film noir about an out-of-work actor turning to crime."

As he did with his first movie, Helier is intent on shaking things up in the thriller genre. "I have written some strong roles for women. It is time for a bit of change and to mix things a bit. We have had a lot of mens in thrillers, it is time to hand over the guns."