Aami and Frank / CTVC Short Film

Description

The pitch is presented by the Producer, Chris Hees (BAFTA winning, Oscar nominated) and the writer/director Kim Roden, (CTVC researcher/ co-ordinator, with numerous directing credits on short films, music videos and branded content).

We represent a team who work for, or have partnerships with, independent production company CTVC. A registered charity, CTVC was originally founded to produce Christian programming. Today the company creates acclaimed television, that seeks to educate and promote understanding of a wide range of moral, ethical and religious issues.

The film explains why we chose The Good Samaritan as our biblical reference, as well as introduce our setting for the film, which is inspired by one of CTVC’s own programmes, The Murder Workers.

The main chunk of the video explains the story; giving details of our characters and their journeys. Frank's son has recently died and murder worker, Aami is assigned to his case. Although their journey is turbulent, Joan and Frank eventually come to understand one another and find solidarity in one another’s company.

We have chosen to use visual references and music to bring the pitch video to life. We wanted people to be drawn in as well as begin to showcase our filmmaking skills.

Biblical Connection

In the famous parable of The Good Samaritan, which contains the line “Love your neighbour as yourself” Jesus relates the importance of showing kindness to one another. When we examine the historical context of the parable, we see that this story presents the moral message to show kindness to an ‘enemy’. By approaching the unfortunate Jew on the road, who had fallen victim to robbers, the Samaritan showed courage, trust and empathy, which transcended racial and religious prejudice as well as decades of political strife. The journey that the two unlikely companions in Jesus’ story take together - the Samaritan on foot, leading the Jew to a place of safety on his own donkey – forms the emotional narrative of our piece. We believe our chosen parable could not be more relevant to modern people and occurrences, and is well worth re-telling. Events in Syria, the influx of asylum seekers to Europe and more generally, the continuing flow of Globalisation, are just some examples that highlight the importance and relevance of re-telling this story, particularly in a way that highlights the religious and cultural contention that the character’s in Jesus’ tale manage to overcome.