Rise and rise of Hungerford filmmaker

HUNGERFORD filmmaker Drew Casson’s debut feature film has won a tranche of awards and plaudits at international film festivals - just as he starts work on a sequel.Mr Casson directed and starred in ‘Hungerford’ - a science fiction horror movie about...

HUNGERFORD filmmaker Drew Casson’s debut feature film has won a tranche of awards and plaudits at international film festivals - just as he starts work on a sequel.

Mr Casson directed and starred in ‘Hungerford’ - a science fiction horror movie about aliens coming to his hometown.

His first feature film, it premiered at the BFI National Film Theatre last year and has since been screened at festivals around the UK, Los Angeles and, most recently, Germany and Portugal.

The 20-year-old former John O’Gaunt School pupil said: “The journey has been amazing. Earlier this year I was interviewed by MovieMaker magazine, which is the second biggest selling movie magazine in America.

“And then came news ‘Hungerford’ had been accepted into the Berlin Independent Film Festival, where it scooped the award for 'Best Sci-Fi Feature film.’”

Mr Casson then flew out to Portugal to represent 'Hungerford' at Fantasporto film festival in Porto - a festival where directors such as Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro started out.

He introduced the film to the festival audience and subsequently discovered that Newbury actress Georgia Bradley had won ‘Best Actress’ for her performance as Phil in ‘Hungerford.

With a few more festivals to go, the movie has already been awarded six laurels by festival juries.

Meanwhile Mr Casson has announced that work has started on a sequel - ‘Hungerford: Ground Zero’ - together with Wildseed Studios and much of the original cast.

He said: “We are in pre-production on ‘Hungerford: Groundzero’ now, with casting, identifying locations and finalising the script ahead of filming starting late next month.