LFW22 | Shorts Competition

Saturday 10 December 2022

Preview

FLOWERS

Directed by Dumas Haddad
United Kingdom | Experimental | 2022 | 7 min

Synopsis

FLOWERS is an afro-futuristic fairytale of love, following a ceremony of a mother giving away her son. Our protagonist is gifted with a heavy crown by his mother to the disappointment of his overlooked brothers. A crown of glory. A crown that comes with a mission and a price. This is a story about the deep, transformative power of love, a story about family, purpose and realising one’s destiny.

Flowers reimagines what a black fairy-tale would look and feel like, adopting references to classic Disney stories from the 1930s-50s and modernising tropes for this whimsical coming of age tale.

Cast

Sheik Sherriff
Kenechi Carmel Amamgbo
Afua Hirsch
Yann Gael
Tienne Simon
Tani Josh Banjoko
Alexandre Sappa
Joshua Kekana

Credits

Writer & Director: Dumas Haddad
Executive Producer: Myles Payne
Producer: George Telfer
Cinematographer: Olan Collardy
Creative Director: Adémidé Udoma
Production Designer: Jade Adeyemi
Costume Designer: Ola Ebiti
Editors: Dumas Haddad & James Bradley
Grade: Matthieu Tollet
Colour House: The Mill
Score: Miinx
Titles: Adémidé Udoma
Sound Designer: Bankey Ojo
Dubbing Mixer: Ty S. Anderson
Edit Assistant: Mossie Cassidy
VFX: Micah McLeod
Sound Engineer (England): String & Tins (England) Maxime Berland (France)
Production Manager: Chloe Slattery
Director’s Assistant: Emm Le Chat
Production Assistant: Katherina Koukou
Location Manager: Lois Constantinou
1st Assistant Director: Sam Barnham
2nd Assistant Director: Akay Delano
Focus Puller: Oliver Bingham
Clapper Loader: Nevzet Altinisik
BTS: Shaka Agina
Gaffers: Vini Curtis Krunal Saadrani
Production Company: Agile Films
Casting Agency: Lane Casting
Casting Director: Hannah Ashby Ward
Casting Assistant: Priyanka Patel
Stylist Assistant: Holly Bartley
Stylist Assistant: Nay Lee
Makeup Designer: Bari Khalique
Hair: Danielle Igor
Minibus Drivers: Cyril Bartick John Newton
Art Dept Assistant: Martha Howe, Lorraine Khamali, Lily Soede, Bronte Carter, Tom Cripps
Electricians: Jorge Higgins, Peter Twitchen, Cieran Nash

This film will play before
feature film Winter Boy (Christophe Honoré)
TICKETS

Date

Saturday 10 December 2022

Venue

The Garden Cinema
39-41 Parke Street
London WC2B 5PQ

Other Festival Selections

BFI London Film Festival 2022

About the Director

Dumas Haddad grew up in London, whose work elicits powerful uses of analogies and explores the reframing of diaspora identities. Following his 2019 film on fatherhood and mental health “Fathers” his follow up “The Gift” aired the same year on Film 4. He has since partnered up with Letitia Wright to co-direct the short “Things I Never Told My Father”. Haddad is currently developing his debut feature film, a Coming of Age/Sci-Fi film titled Fishbait.

Director Statement

I directed this film, Flowers, as my goal was to reframe the magic of a fairytale for a diaspora. The hope was to modernise tropes with realism (but with an afro-futuristic twist), to create a film that was filled with heart and soul and also something visually exciting. Maintaining an enchanted yet lyrical, poetic and ethereal feel were equally important as the voice of the film, to present this reimagining with beauty firmly at the helm.