TWO SEAS

Synopsis
Denied the future she dreams of a young girl runs away to sea.

About
Made as part of the Film London "London Calling" 2014 scheme. 

Shot on Location in London, Essex and Underwater in Basildon. Photography was completed in June 2014. 

After a love affair with an Iranian woman,  in an effort to understand the collision of two cultures, I wrote Two Seas.  Realising it on a budget would prove difficult so I looked to director Nick Murphy's manifesto for his TV series Prey. 

Following some of his ideas we shot all but the underwater shots on a single zoom lens and without lighting. It was a risk but it meant we could move fast and the film was shot in three days. It's festival debut was the at BFI London Film Festival 2014.
 

Theme
The title is taken from the Koran

“He has let loose the two seas (the salt water and the sweet) meeting together. Between them is a barrier which none of them can transgress” 

And thematically the sea has always been a place of escape: 
“The sea does not belong to despots. Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears. Ah! sir, live—live in the bosom of the waters! There only is independence! There I recognize no masters! There I am free!”

- Captain Nemo - Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Length 15 minutes    
Language English & Farsi

Cast
July Namir
Davoud Rastgou
Payam Postchi
Ria Zmitowicz
Ted Reilly
Kieran Yvas

Crew
Director: Orlando Cubitt
Producer: Jacob Swan Hyam
Executive: Charlotte Walls
Editor: Matt Nee
Music: Tristan Cassel -Delavois Cinematographer: Chris Storrar
Casting Director: Annie Rowe

Production Designer: Ezra Piers-Mantell
Wardrobe Designer: Kate Tabor
Hair & Makeup Designer:
Charlotte Kraftman
Location Sound Recordist: Dean Hewitson
Underwater Cinematography: Sergio Cesari
Continuity: Sophie Head
Focus Puller: Beau Scott
DIT: Deloris Collins

Underwater Gaffer: Neil Blackman
Underwater Focus Puller: Anthony Hugill
Catering: Jet Swan Hyam
Runner: Callum Toms
Gaffer: Jim Agnew
Underwater Studio:
Action Underwater - Basildon