SPECIAL EDITION
FLIX PREMIERE Close-Up
Flix Premiere features its SECOND Original production
U S
P R E M I E R E
FEBRUARY 2 2018 - 7PM EST
U K
P R E M I E R E
FEBRUARY 3 2018 - 7PM GMT
FLIX PREMIERE ORIGINAL
3
UK Premiere FEBRUARY 3 - 7PM GMT
US Premiere FEBRUARY 2 - 7PM EST
Butterfly Kisses Starring: Theo Stevenson, Liam Whitting, Byron Lyons, Rosie Day, Thomas Turgoose, Elliot Cowan, Charlotte Beaumont
A group of mates from a housing
Butterfly Kisses, Rafael Kapelinski’s
project south of London faces the joys
debut
and perils of growing up.
almost-surrealist noir tone that slowly
feature,
surprises
with
an
builds throughout the film. Increased freedom and unstable home lives leave these boys to learn about
Shot in a crisp black and white, it first
the adult world through older friends
evokes neorealism and British social
and pornography.
realism before gradually diverting from traditional narrative.
Obsessed with sex and lured by drugs and petty opportunities for delinquen-
What
cy, Jake and his pals live the restless
picaresque coming of age tale shifts
and shifting life of the young.
into a trance-like and detached revela-
begins
as
a
recognizable
tion of the unspeakable sexual obsesBut Jake has a deep and dark secret, one that he cannot share even with his closest confidants.
sion of a young man.
Unforgettable.
Stephen Fry
4
Jake, played by Theo Stevenson, is
At night, he perches on the top floor of
fundamentally lonely. Uncomfortable
his housing project’s high-rise, to
with his friends’ probing questions about his experience with girls and his sexual desires, he retrenches into his own world.
Volunteering to babysit the neighbor’s
Confident London story of young love and old secrets.
Peter Bradshaw,
watch “interesting people,” he says. But the camera betrays that there is more
erotically-driven
voyeurism
attached to this ritual than mere observation.
The Guardian
daughter, he seems to be most at ease
Will anyone close to Jake catch on to
and himself around children.
his secret obsession before he harms himself or others?
What begins as a recognizable picaresque coming of age tale shifts into a trance-like and detached revelation of the unspeakable sexual obsession of a young man.
5 Beautifully produced.
John Malkovich
In Butterfly Kisses, screenwriter Greer Ellison has penned a bold and original drama that breaks boundaries in its exploration of the life of a protagonist
The resulting effect is that
Dream-like sequences of horses appear-
that no studio would consider portraying
Butterfly Kisses provides a
ing in the urban landscape and adoles-
on the big screen. One of the film’s most
profound and new look at a
cents wearing animal head masks at a
remarkable attributes is its multi-faceted
taboo subject that is as
party are interspersed with a realism-driv-
aesthetically innovative and
en approach to urban poverty familiar
representation of Jake.
Stevenson’s acting and cinematographer Nick Cooke’s meticulous composi-
pleasing as its story is daring and challenging.
from film history.
The resulting effect is that Butterfly Kisses
tions endow him with a high level of
provides a profound and new look at a
humanity and even sympathy.
taboo subject that is as aesthetically innovative and pleasing as its story is
Nevertheless, the almost inevitable and
Such tension, between the relatable teen
fatalistic bend of Jake’s character arch
boy and his turn as a menacing threat to
ultimately renders him a monster in both
his neighbors – keenly felt by the
That is why we are thrilled to debut it on
his own and the viewer’s eyes.
audience – neatly manifests itself in
our platform as our latest Flix Premiere
Kapelinski’s film.
Original.
daring and challenging.
PRODUCER’S CORNER
6
Q: What first interested you behind the powerful story of Butterfly Kisses, and how did the project come to life? M.M:
‘Butterfly Kisses’ was an incredibly difficult film to produce. I met Greer, the writer, by chance about six years ago on a different shoot, and he pitched me a very early version of the idea. As soon as I heard it, I couldn’t get out of my head, and a week later, I was still thinking about it. I think that’s the true test of an idea. So I called Greer and said I’d like to discuss the idea of commissioning him to write a first draft.
Hear directly from acclaimed filmmaker Merlin Merton, the Producer of our second Original - Butterfly Kisses Q: Looking over Butterfly Kisses’ festival run, critical reviews, and general commentary on the film, there must have been many suitors initially trying to partner with you. How did the Flix Premiere relationship come to life? What made you most excited about their approach with your movie? M.M: After winning the Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and the film started to tour the festival circuit internationally, our next step was working out who to distribute. It was a difficult film to get off the ground, and the offers that we received followed a very standard distribution model. But then along came Flix Premiere. The model with Flix was transparent, and innovative. I truly believe cinema will be dead in the next few decades. Every cinema release seems to be prestige based, which isn’t a working business model. But what intrigued me was using the ‘theatrical model’ for VOD. A heightened version of other VOD platforms.
Butterfly Kisses was an incredibly difficult film to produce... As soon as I heard [the story], I couldn’t get out it of my head, and a week later, I was still thinking about it. I think that’s the true test of an idea.
PRODUCER’S CORNER
7 (On the process of selecting a Director) ... I’d seen Rafael’s short, Emily Cries, a year before, and it’d stuck in my head. It fused a rawness, and dreaminess that we wanted to achieve in Butterfly Kisses.
Q: Can you talk a bit about the cinematography of the film? How did the team land on the decision to shoot in black and white?
Ultimately, Rafael [Kapelinski]
M.M: Finding the right director of photography was perhaps the hardest task. Rafael wanted to portray London in a way that
wanted the film to have a dreamy look, and a certain nobility.
hadn’t been done before. He’d heard about Nick Cooke, who at the time was starting to make a name for himself as an upcoming DOO, but when they met, it immediately
Ultimately, Rafael and Nick did some screen tests in colour
clicked.
and in black and white, though the black and white footage looked murky and grey.
The choice of black and white was only a few months before we were due to go into production. Though it may seem a
Then we stumbled across the special edition RED Mono-
long time, it impacted a lot of the work the art department
chrome camera that shot only in black and white. This was
had already put in place.
contrary to the more standard mode which is to shoot in colour, then desaturated to black and white in the post-production. Rafael and Nick shot a test scene, and it had a silvery, very dreamy quality. Ultimately, Rafael wanted the film to have a dreamy look, and a certain nobility.
DIRECTOR’S CORNER
8
Q: Much attention has been drawn to your film’s evocation of British social realism, and its distinctive departures from that tradition. Could you tell us a bit about your decision to shoot the film in black and white? What influences would you say you brought to this project from film history? Was it important to you to evoke that tradition as a teacher of film and filmmaker? R.K: I am not sure if we have been entirely successful in our approach, but we can honestly say that the question of trying to stretch the boundaries of that genre had been on our mind throughout the process of making the film. Shooting in black and white allowed us to saturate the film with a sense of melancholia. In the end, the film's narrator tells us about the
Acclaimed filmmaker Rafael Kapelinski, the Director of our second Original - Butterfly Kisses shares his thoughts Q: Butterfly Kisses deals with a very topical subject, but in the
moment in his life, when he realised that life was far from being an innocent affair...
kind of setting that isn’t receiving much attention in the inter-
More importantly, however, the monochromatic colour
national dialogue on sexual assault. What drew you to the
palette gives the story a certain heightened solemnity, which
project when you began developing it years before this was a
I like very much in literature as well as in painting. Some of
subject on everyone’s mind? R.K: When I joined the project the draft script was already there, but we continued to develop it till the very last day... What makes Butterfly Kisses different is the perspective of the telling. Jake, the protagonist, is merely a teenager, and yet he must face the demons that we usually associate with much older age. Maybe we have seen it before, but it is the nature of his particular problem that is absolutely new... Also, by assuming his point of view in the story we were able to get much closer to him as a character. As a result, the film feels very intimate and personal, which is what I usually look for in films in general.
Shooting in black and white allowed us to saturate the film with a sense of melancholia.... the monochromatic colour palette gives the story a certain heightened solemnity, which I like very much in literature as well as in painting.
the early references included my favourite films such as 'M' by Fritz Lang and 'The Spirit of the Beehive' by Victor Erice. So, the end result is very eclectic: on one hand, the film includes the echoes of late German expressionism and of magical realism on the other.
DIRECTOR’S CORNER
9 Q: The music for the film really serves to set the tone. What did you set out to accomplish in devising the soundtrack, and how did you come to the decision to bring in those swelling organ pieces? R.K: Again, we wanted to do something different. We have heard organ music in a few big films in the last few years, but it has never been used so extensively. I have always liked the sound of the organ and for me it was a question of following instincts.
Nathan Klein, our composer, initially resisted the idea a little only in the end to produce the kind of soundtrack that exceeded all our expectations. The organ music, to my mind, stands for something immutable, something sacred, and complements the black and white rather well.
What makes Butterfly Kisses different is the perspective of the telling. Jake, the protagonist, is merely a teenager, and yet he must face the demons that we usually associate with much older age.
Q: Tell us about your experience on the festival circuit. How have audiences responded to the film so far? R.K: In spite of the very controversial treatment of the central theme, we are very pleased with the film's performance on the festival circuit... We won the Crystal Bear in the Generation 14 Plus section at the Berlinale 2017 as well as a few other major awards.
The film has played at some really important festivals and we are very grateful for it. It is probably fair to say that we never expected 'Butterly Kisses' to make such waves...
The organ music, to my mind, stands for something immutable, something sacred, and complements the black and white rather well.
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