Hollywood calling
Aspiring Hollywood movie director Fuwad Abrar has completed his debut feature length film – which will be shown around the UK and abroad. The Film, Television and Radio Studies graduate hired professional actors to turn his long term idea into a silver screen thriller brimming with suspense and intrigue.
Isolated follows protagonist Jack while he tries to fix the biggest mistake of his life. Wandering the streets of Hanley, in Stoke-on-Trent, Jack makes call after call in an effort to set things right with those involved.
“The film follows a similar style to Locke, with Tom Hardy,” Fuwad explained. “I came up with the idea when I was 14 and saw a man sat on a bench who looked really depressed. I was always interested in what his day was like – why he looked depressed. It was just an idea that stuck in my head.”
Education in film
Fuwad grew up in Longton and attended The City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College before joining Staffordshire University in 2012. His interest in films started young and he began writing scripts and creating his own productions by the age of 13.
“I’ve been film making for over 10 years now,” Fuwad said. “I’ve gained a lot of experience and developed my skills during school, college and then at Staffordshire University. When I was 13 I could barely finish writing a screenplay and since then I’ve learned a lot through experience, reading my favourite scripts online and novels to develop my vocabulary and writing ability.”
Fuwad’s favourite genre is sci-fi and he lists The Matrix and Star Wars as having a big influence, alongside action films such as batman movie The Dark Knight, and Quentin Tarantino classic Pulp Fiction. His final year project during his degree was a short sci-fi film called The Program, where technology allows people to record their dreams so they can relive them.
He said: “We shot that film in five days during our final year. That idea was so big for a short film whereas our new film, Isolated, is quite small for feature length as it’s all dialogue.”
Script writing
Fuwad worked closely with his friend and colleague Alfie Latifaj to fund and create Isolated, which took two weeks to write, five days to shoot and two months to edit. While Alfie took on producer duties, Fuwad was left to bring his creative vision to the screen, selecting the cast, directing the film and completing the editing.
An online advert for the lead role saw 140 applications. “That was really because of the script,” Fuwad said. “We posted it online and it drew a lot of attention. It is a very character driven movie but there are only two onscreen and the rest are voice actors.”
Fuwad’s prolific writing ability sees him producing at least one short screenplay a week and several feature length scripts a year. His next major project, Mirage, is about tackling anxiety and he is hoping to finance it through crowdfunding.
“The dream is to be in Hollywood one day, directing big budget sci-fi movies, but I want to get into indie films first in the UK. We’re making no-budget films at the moment – for Isolated we only paid expenses. But we’re hoping it will be well received and we’re showing it in Longton, London and then maybe abroad as well as the BFI London Film Festival.”
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