WALTHAMSTOW: Film director scoops prestigious award

4:30pm Thursday 27th March 2008

Comments (8)   Have your say »

A WALTHAMSTOW film-maker has won an international award for his latest short flick.

Neil McEnery-West, 31, of Winns Terrace, scooped the best director of short film prize at the New York International Independent Film Festival for his work Undertow.

The lead actor in the 30-minute film, Matthew Jure, also scooped a prize for best actor in a short film.

Undertow was also nominated for best international short film but narrowly missed out.

Mr McEnery-West said: "It is absolutely fantastic, I was just pleased that we were nominated in the three most competitive categories."

Undertow , which took four years to make, is a tragic love story shot mainly in a deserted London.

The crew had to film London at quiet times without any people or traffic in shot, which required patience from everyone involved.

Mr McEnery-West said: "I think the judges were impressed by how ambitious the film was, cast and crew members worked hard and gave their time for free.

"London is a great city to shoot in, it has amazing buildings."

The director also praised Mr Jure for his role in the film.

He said: "Matt is incredibly talented and patient and just worked at everything until it was right."

Undertow does not feature a huge amount of dialogue and the film's atmosphere is largely created by music, along with natural sounds such as water, wind, seagulls and footsteps.

It has been described as featuring an "expressionistic structure involving flashbacks and dreams".

Mr McEnery's work will be screened at the Compton Club Cinema in Soho on April 8 and at the Cannes Film Festival later in the year.

The director is now working on a feature-length thriller called Dipping, the plot of which focuses on a group of thieves operating on the London Underground.