12/11/2012 - Teenager Rob Savage made debut feature for just £3000

British debutant filmmaker Rob Savage’s journey from script to screen is the stuff fairytales are made of, but the actual process was sheer hard graft. Savage, now 20, wrote, directed, edited, shot and co-produced Strings when he was 18, coming from no background in film, and funded the film from by working paper rounds and other odd jobs. The film’s shooting budget was just £3000.

The film, in English and German, is a drama about a German exchange student who begins an impulsive and ultimately destructive relationship with a shy British boy in her final weeks before returning to Munich and her warring family. Savage watched Hans-Christian Schmid’s Requiem [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
interview: Sandra Hueller
film profile] at the London Film Festival and contacted the lead star Sandra Hüller, who won Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival for it. A friendship developed and Hüller mentored the project and helped Savage cast the German parts. Savage also received help from indie directors Marc Price (Colin) and Gareth Edwards (Monsters).

Strings won Savage a place on the Berlin Film Festival Talent Campus. The film is up for the New Talent Award at the Rome Film Festival, was nominated for Best Debut Feature at the Raindance Film Festival and is nominated for the Raindance Award at the British Independent Film Awards.

Savage says, “Obviously the main focus of the awards is the more prestigious movies, but I think that Strings has the most unique story behind it and has overcome huge odds to be nominated amongst such fantastic competition.”

Savage’s If Idle Films has three offers for UK distribution, all looking to release in early 2013. A sales agent is being finalised for international sales.