Marc Jobst, HOME, February 2020, SVA Goods Shed
Stroud Film Festival 2020 kicked off in February with Hollywood director Marc Jobst and cast members performing a live pitch to HOME, involving the packed out audience in a unique process for a multi-generational dance musical about three homeless young people in Bristol.
Noah, Minnie and Fizz are there because the streets offer refuge from the conflicts of family life. They can’t escape the reasons for being there, but they find in each other the courage to break free and start anew. Rhythm, rhyme, music and dance fuel the story, arising naturally out of the action and characters, reflecting the music and lives of three generations in the story. “Home doesn’t duck the darkness in their lives, but it fizzles with energy, humour and attitude, to create a story that is set against the shifting generational values of our times” Marc Jobst, (The Witcher, Marvel’s Daredevil, The Punisher, Hannibal)
The film, which is being developed in the UK and US, asks some big questions: What is HOME to us? Is it a place? A family? An object? A person? Inside us? Is it different for everyone? Do each of us create our own understanding of HOME ?
Marc performed HOME’s story outline at the SVA’s Goods Shed with key collaborators including BirdGang – an international dance group who specialize in telling stories through dance, co-writer Yolanda Mercy and Conrad Murray, founder of the Beatbox Academy at the Battersea Arts Centre.
The story and characters are based on real people, after months of research with young people in Bristol and Gloucester. The film’s production will include young people with no previous connection to the film industry. Marc continues: ‘‘I met many young people separated from their families for complex reasons. My experience was that they all had warmth, vitality and a desire for life, just not the right environment to express it. They wanted a film that was about them that their mum and grandmas would go and see – not another sink-estate, drugs-and-violence movie only they’d go and see. I wanted to rise to their challenge and love the idea that we can make something all age groups will come to and that maybe each will gain a little more insight into the other.”
Now it’s time for the next step on the collaborative journey. A free online event on 27th May invites audience members to be part of a two way process with the director and actors as the script evolves. Head to the Stroud Film Festival website here for further info and to obtain tickets to the event.