"One Week Later"
“One Week Later” is a powerful and hard-hitting drama that covers the events taking place during one eventful week at school. The main character, Sonny, gets caught up in the conflict between rival groups within the school. As events unfold he must decide how he can act to resolve the problems. Themes of bullying, homophobia and peer pressure are dealt with by a large cast of characters, all with their own story to tell. “One Week Later” was written, performed and crewed by young people of 15 and under, for whom events like this are a common occurrence.
The project came about as a means of addressing conflicts between different groups within Ferndown Upper School, Dorset. Director Peter Snelling said of this project “ ‘One Week Later’ was a very tough project to start with as the only way to make a film based on the conflict in the school was to get the young people from both factions to talk about and confront the fighting that had taken place between the gangs.
With persistence, a lot of energy and with the support from the school we began to break down the divisions that existed and give members of both camps a voice in the script. As the shoot began I could see the young people grasping the idea that the only way they were going to realize their film was by collaborating and working together.
For me this process reached it’s climax when the young people insisted on shooting the shot that opens the film as one continuous tracking shot. I explained the difficulties in undertaking such an ambitious shot but they wanted it. It took us most of the day to achieve and demanded that every single person on the shoot do their bit and work together. When we finally pulled it off there was a massive cheer from all members of the team regardless of their allegiances to separate gangs.”
This film has been selected into the finals of the Encounters Short Film Festival – one of the world’s best-known and best-respected celebrations of animation and films under 30 minutes duration. To achieve a place on the final shortlist for the festival, “One Week Later” had to impress a panel of judges who saw a total 1,750 entries from a record 66 countries. The film now goes into the next round of judging, that takes place during Encounters 2007, a five-day festival happening in Bristol, UK, from 21-25 November, and which offers prizes worth a total of £20,000.
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