It's been a really great run since Un Seul Corps hit the festival circuit. Am really pleased to share the news and to congratulate director (and one of my oldest friends) Sotiris Dounoukos on another hit he's had with the film.

After its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014 where it picked up the award for Best International Short, it has just gone on to win Best Short Film at the St Kilda Film Festival in Melbourne, Australia. This festival is the longest-running short film festival in Australia, having showcased short film since 1983.

It's so great to see the film doing so well and striking a chord with audiences all over the world. Set in a town in rural France it's the poignant and sharply honest story of two African immigrant abattoir workers with dreams of building a life with a future. The strength they find together in compensating for each other's shortcomings and focusing on their plans is tested when a tragic accident divides them.

In terms of the music, Sotiris really wanted us to steer clear of any kind of obvious ethnic musical references and instead to draw inspiration from the harshly cold environment these men were trying to navigate, with only small glimpses of human warmth as they slowly feel less like outsiders.

The film has also screened in Glasgow earlier in 2015 and in New York at the Brooklyn Film Festival in May. 

It's so great to be able to congratulate Sotiris for the success of this film. And it's even more exciting that this year we're also working together on his first feature film which is currently in the last days of shooting! More details on that to come in due course...  

**UPDATE**

News just in, it appears that Un Seul Corps (in english - A Single Body) has just won the Dendy Award for best short film at the Sydney Film Festival! I'm thrilled to see Sotiris getting this well-deserved recognition in the lead-up to his feature début. It's very encouraging to see audiences and juries responding positively to this kind of storytelling. As we're becoming more and more desensitised to fast-paced cutting and hooks to appeal to shorter attention spans, it's good to see that a film which boldly swims upstream against this tide can still speak to audiences.