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Name of Film:
Miles Away

Name and Position of Filmmakers:
Brendan McNamee writer / director

Total Runtime:
82 minutes

Genre:
surreal

Synopsis:
1987, BSE spreads across the country, a mystical ‘Harmonic
Convergence’ is predicted and two bagmen travel to the country to
bury their loot and lay low for a while. What transpires blurs every
line of reality, character and narrative.



Website:
www.bluntfilms.co.uk

Country of Production:
UK

Country of Filmming:
UK

Date of Completion:
10/09/2009

Other Festivals:
NJiFF, Raindance, Honolulu

Awards:
NJiFF, best feature, Hon0lulu - golden kahuna

What is the Premiere Status of the Film?
Florida Premiere

Is there profanity, nudity, violence, gore, etc? If so, please explain
in detail and give your opinion of an acceptable age limit.
A little profanity - 15 rating.


Medium Synopsis          

          Rokit and Gill two ordinary bagmen arrive in tiny village of 
‘Daeri’. Are they hiding, holidaying? With them is a sack of valuable 
loot likened to a ‘golden fleece’.

Daeri, no ordinary farming community, famous for its prize winning 
bulls, and the finest head of cattle in Britain, could be in trouble 
with the outbreak of a new disease: ‘B.S.E.’ that seems to be sending 
the livestock of Britain, mad. 

Hope, a young girl who sings the song of sirens, with the guile of a 
goddess a young priestess with a pure bloodline stretching back 
centuries to ancient Greece, tto a time when beasts and gods roamed the 
earth side by side. She is the lynchpin between earth and the heavens, 
its sickness and its health, she is a vessel through which the ancient 
gods can do their healing and they, the bagmen, are the catalyst to do 
so.






Long Synopsis          
          
          It’s 1987, a new disease that is affecting cattle livestock 
has been discovered a year earlier, as the scientists try to find out 
how and why it is attacking the bovine community, sending them as the 
media calls ‘mad’. A small village in the middle of nowhere have been 
expecting this for 18 years. Daeri is a tiny town, but an important one.
 Famous for prize winning bulls whose seed is more valuable than gold, 
the livelihood of the local community and the future of the British beef
 industry is at stake. 

In Daeri are descendents from the mythological union of Zeus, king of 
the gods and Queen Pasiphae, mother to the monster minotaur. Hope is a 
young girl who sings the song of sirens, a young priestess with the same
 pure bloodline stretching back centuries to ancient Greece, to a time 
when beasts and gods roamed the earth side by side. She is the lynchpin 
between earth and the heavens, its sickness and its health, she is a 
vessel through which the ancient gods can do their healing and they, the
 bagmen, are the catalyst to do so.

Rokit and Gill laying low in the countryside arrive with a brimming sack
 more valuable than the ‘golden fleece’. After burying the loot they 
settle down to wait. To wait for what? They’ll never find out, before 
they know whether they are off to the shops or coming back with change, 
they are manipulated, paranoid, seeing inanimate objects become animate 
and hearing the local herd speak to them let alone sleeping out the 
night with them. 

Gill a Taurus and pale as milk, is the living embodiment of the ‘bull 
from the sea’ his is the seed that will help purify the next generation 
in the bloodline but with it he will have to make a sacrifice. Give up 
one life for the next and settle down miles away from anywhere and 
anything he has been to or done before. Gill sees truth anew and beauty 
all around him, where once he followed orders without question in the 
underbelly of the city now in Daeri he finds contentment in something so
 simple as being submersed in the darkness of a washing trough. Rokit is
 not so taken, he cannot help but hate the boredom of the fields and a 
blacker side manifests itself when he becomes trapped in the hole whilst
 burying the swag. His mind wanders, his thoughts darken. Is it all a 
dream? Is he still stuck alive and delirious in a coffin dug by his 
partner? Murderous thoughts and madness overtake him and at a time where
 there should be harmony all events converge and fate splits the 
partnership. A new beginning and a time when many planets in our solar 
system align with each other, a new era of spiritual enlightenment, a 
change in global perspective of man from one of conflict to one of 
cooperation is ushered in. A gangster film this is not.


Director Statement    
    
    It has taken two years to complete the production on Miles Away and 
in that time i have met and been lucky enough to receive support from 
literally hundreds of people. Without these people giving up their time,
 money, homes and in some cases clothes I would never have been able to 
realise my dream. Miles Away, as a story is a metaphor i suppose for 
changing something in your life, for going with the flow and for being 
flexible enough to let things happen differently to how you had imagined
 them and still being just as good. We had to shoot Miles Away in a very
 disparate and creative manner. From financial constraints come creative
 solutions such as shooting partly in HD, and partly in Film. 
Structuring the script so as the characters go 'madder' the film becomes
 more lush, shooting in daylight and painstakingly rotoscoping it for 
night because we could not afford the lights. Camping in a field for the
 duration of the shoot and in so doing making a holiday of the 
experience. Every problem was only another creative decision, the point 
of the film, beyond the mythology and the madness was to make a film, 
every person gave me there time because they wanted to make a film. 
There was no talk of money at any time from anyone, it never ever seemed
 to cloud the point. To make the film. This is the first feature length 
film I have made and I knew before i had shot a frame that I would never
 make a film like it again, I knew that it would be my favorite film i 
would ever make and that the creativity and freedom I have enjoyed will 
unlikely ever be so innocent again. Making the film, but more so 
shooting the film in a field miles from anywhere, with a tiny crew, many
 of whom had never met before, has been the single most profound 
experience of my life.     
  

Production Notes
"Scouting for accommodation"
Three weeks from principal photography and we still didn't have any accommodation. There was zero chance of being able to afford hotels / motels for the cast and crew and the last thing we wanted to do was drive three hours everyday to the location and back, it would never have worked and the crew would clearly have revolted, let alone afford the fuel costs for on average 18 people to travel every day. Trying to find accommodation for the actors and crew was not proving to be an easy task. We tried to gain sponsorship from one of many hotels and motels without success, before Rob (Lindsay, Line producer) hit upon the idea of speaking to the local scout group and trying to get some help from them. Lo and behold the 'Pulborough' scouts lent us 10 x 4 man tents, 2 x chemical toilets (not nice) cookers, pots, pans, crockery, and gas bottles. Not only did they lend them to us, they came to our campsite and put the whole lot up. We supplied a small marquee, to fit our kitchen in and some other friends lent us a mini bus, an equipment van and a camper van. We had our base camp set up right in the middle of our location, thanks to Mark our kindly farmer and apart from showers this was a luxury home.
That night, before the first days photography, 8 of us prepared for the day ahead drinking by candle light and working out where to start. That evening set the tone for the next 13 days of shooting and 13 nights of partying and apart from 2 exceptionally wet days, the weather was very, very kind to us.