​Holding Hands With Strangers

Sometime around February 2012 during my final year at university, I had to hand in a 15 minute short film script. The night before I was sat in my kitchen in Battersea staring down at a blank document. My mind however was completely elsewhere, it kept travelling back to one faithful September night; six months prior to the script deadline, I had spent some time in the States and found myself alone for 3 days in New York. On my last night there, I met someone. We both had something to drink, it was a crazy and intense experience and before I realised what it all meant I was on a plane back to London. With the both of us tied to university, separated by distance and time zones, it was always going to be a recipe for disaster.

 

So I did what any tortured artist would do; I poured my heart out on 15 pages of Celtx. The first draft of Holding Hands with Strangers was written( and handed in just on time). To my surprise it received a lot of positive feedback. I had to now make this into an actual film. After graduation I found a producer, put ads online for a crew and for a second there, there was a bit of hope the film was actually getting made. But when we only raised a small amount of funds through crowd funding ,we decided the time wasn’t right for the film to be made. I left London for financial reasons and returned back to the Netherlands.

 

It wasn’t until October when a close friend of mine reminded me of the script and encouraged me to get it made. I then joined forces with Tim Porter, after originally having asked him to be the main editor on the project, he proposed to produce the film. The project was no longer my baby, it became our baby. From there on out the film was put in motion. We were amazed by the response we received after we posted several casting calls online. People started sending in their own stories of their personal encounters, it became clear that this was a story anyone could relate to regardless of their sexual orientation or gender. I went over to London in December and in January 2013 we were holding our first round of auditions.

 

Fast forward to April 25th 2013; it was a surreal feeling as we started principal photography on ‘Holding Hands with Strangers’. After searching the whole of London, we were lucky to work with an amazing cast ( Rita Walters, Claire Cartwright, Austin Caley), who each individually put their own spin on their characters, braved the cold and gave me their best efforts, time and dedication for free. Our main crew consisted of Jack Ayers (Director of Photography) and Vijay Tailor (Sound Technician) who each brought a high level of experience and professionalism to the project. Shooting around London on a budget of 210GBP, we were very fortunate to have these two on our team and deliver great visuals and sound. And along with the main crew and cast, there are the supporting actors (Nadya Shaw Bennett, Emma Jane Sullivan), the many extras, additional crew, venues and help and support of individuals who all worked hard and contributed to making the best film to our ability.

 

Holding Hands with Strangers is a film about meeting new people, letting go of your inhibitions and for one night, being the person you want to be. It’s a film about putting up a front and at times, when with the right person, subconsciously showing the very first glimpses of your vulnerability. But most of all it is about a connection you feel, an undeniable, unexplainable connection, as If you can’t help yourself. It’s about refusing to let go and all the over-analysing, laughs, worries and cries that come with taking a chance upon someone.