Raging Grace: The horror film inspired by Britain’s mistreated migrant workers

Published

5 months ago

December 29, 2023

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An award-winning horror with a small h, Raging Grace is filmmaker Paris Zarcilla’s response to the “micro and macro aggressions of racism” that Britain’s undocumented workers endure.

It’s a film that uses all the tropes of horror to explore what life is like for those working in the UK illegally.

The story centres around Joy, a young Filipino mother, who finds herself caring for a terminally ill man in order to support her British-born daughter Grace.

“Unfortunately, so many experiences of undocumented workers, immigrants, children of the diaspora, are often horrific,” Zarcilla explains.

“My mum, who was a domestic worker when she first came here, worked for rich families and would clean for them, look after their kids.

“They’re often invisible to society, they’re an invisible pillar, and I wanted to be able to show a very specific lived experience that often receives the micro and macro aggressions of racism in our society.”

From rage to page

Zarcilla told Sky News the idea came about in response to what he witnessed around him during the pandemic.

“It was a reaction to a year of great racial chaos, especially over here in the UK, where we were experiencing open aggression towards East and Southeast Asians,” Zarcilla says.

“The very kinds of immigrants that were supporting a very beleaguered NHS.

“Filipino nurses and doctors who were dying on the frontline to protect the British public.

“I was so enraged by it that I needed to put that on a page somewhere.”

No UK funding a ‘deep shame’

But when it came to finding funding, he had to look overseas.

“We went to every single funding body in the UK, and they said no,” Zarcilla reveals.

“I thought I had written something that was true to an experience, a British experience, but it didn’t quite fit with people’s idea of what that was.

“So we actually ended up finding the money in America, which is such a deep shame because I’m deeply proud to be a British Filipino filmmaker.”

And that US investment paid off. Earlier in the year, Raging Grace was the first ever British winner of the prestigious Grand Jury prize at the South By Southwest film festival.

Of course, its release in UK cinemas now comes at a time when immigration is a contentious political talking point: the government promising to clamp down on people smuggling, a majority of the public wanting the UK to control who crosses into its own borders.

“I’m filled with shame and incandescent rage for a government who are so inhumane,” Zarcilla says

“We have seen such disdain for humanity, disdain for the working class and the general public, and honestly, this is what this film is about, you know, finding ways to rebel.”

Raging Grace is in cinemas from 29 December.

Entertainment

Sir Elton John’s next album ‘won’t be his last’, songwriting partner says

Published

5 hours ago

May 26, 2024

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Sir Elton John's next album 'won't be his last', songwriting partner says

An album of “incredibly personal” new songs from Sir Elton John won’t be the singer’s last, according to his long-term songwriting partner Bernie Taupin.

“It’s a pretty amazing project, very cool…it tells a lot of stories and it’s incredibly personal, but it’s certainly not final.”

Few details are known about what fans can expect from Sir Elton‘s new music, but the legendary lyricist says he thinks it will be released before Christmas.

“It’s all done, it’s all in the can and ready to come out, I think, at the end of this year,” Taupin told Sky News.

While Sir Elton, 77, announced his retirement from touring last year, bowing out with a performance on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury, Taupin says they have no plans to stop making music together.

“You always think ‘is the next album going to be the last?’ but, I think, both Elton and I, we just have this creative drive and we have this ultimate total love for music on every different level.”

Taupin, who’s lived in California since the 70s, has been back in England after being invited to speak at The Other Songs Live, an evening celebrating songwriters old and new.

“Anything that nurtures talent, you know, gets my ear,” Taupin insists.

He remains one of the most successful lyricists in the world, having collaborated for more than half a century with Sir Elton, selling more than 300 million records globally, and together writing more than 30 albums.

And while Taupin’s lyrics are firmly embedded in modern pop culture, he says he struggles to explain what his secret is.

“It’s very difficult for me because, in a nutshell, my answer is I don’t know, I just do it.”

But one thing he’s certain of is that it’s a skill a computer just can’t replicate.

“I loathe and detest the whole idea of AI… from a creative musical standpoint, it cannot write songs as well as the human heart can because it’s got no heart.

“I’ve seen the product of AI, you know, when they’ve said write a song in the style of so-and-so and it’s complete shit.”

For Taupin, one-half of one of the world’s most successful songwriting partnerships, he’s not ready to be written off by technology.

Entertainment

Mad Max: Director George Miller on tech limitations, the origin of the franchise and the future of film

Published

6 hours ago

May 26, 2024

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Mad Max: Director George Miller on tech limitations, the origin of the franchise and the future of film

Director George Miller says the Mad Max film franchise that exists today was borne out of limitations.

Originally an emergency room doctor, the Australian director transitioned into film and created the story of a world where limitation is a central theme and abundance a dream.

The Australian director made his first Mad Max film in 1978 with a crew of 35 and a fresh-faced Mel Gibson as the lead.

He says it was filmed on a discarded camera lens from a Steve McQueen film, and the lack of resources to create the project ended up working in his favour.

He tells Sky News: “The first Mad Max was definitely borne out of limitations. It ultimately turned out to be very key to it.”

The 79-year-old says the original story was written as a “contemporary story set in the city of Melbourne,” but financial limitations spawned the idea of it being set in a “dystopian future”.

“We couldn’t afford to have car chases in the middle of the street,” he says. “We couldn’t afford [to have] the extra cars or put stuntmen in those cars. We couldn’t have extras in the street, trams or busses and we couldn’t use the buildings so we decided to set it a few years in the future.”

Miller says they decided to instead focus on what they could use and thus the Mad Max franchise we know today was created.

“We could shoot in backstreets, where there were no extras and no cars, or shoot in really old, decrepit buildings where the people wouldn’t ask you for rent. And that led to the film becoming more allegorical.

“Had we not done that? I don’t think we’d be still doing it.”

Burnt land and no speed limits

Miller is a cinephile at heart and for Mad Max, he had a vision – for it to be shot on a “big anamorphic widescreen”.

He previously credited his childhood in rural Queensland and the over-powering car culture there as the influences for Mad Max.

At the time, the area consisted of completely flat roads, burnt land and no speed limits – the results of which Miller witnessed as an emergency room doctor at the age of 26.

“We couldn’t afford the cameras, or the lenses, but there was a set of lenses in Australia at the time, in one particular place that had been dumped out of Hollywood from the movie that Sam Peckinpah shot called The Getaway with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw”.

All but one of these lenses was “wrecked”.

He says: “The rental house virtually gave it to us for nothing. There was one lens called the 35mm lens, and we used that and it allowed us to get much more dynamics in the shot”.

Why are moments in the Mad Max franchise sped up?

Inspired by the silent film era, Miller’s aim was to create “pure cinema” and make “‘a silent film with sound”.

To achieve the aesthetic he craved, he played around with frame rates.

In film, video is essentially a number of images (frames) captured sequentially to make the image move. Movies display 24 frames per second.

Miller says his plan was to shoot everything at high speed but, because of financial restraints, could not use speed ramps as it would cost the equivalent of a day of filming.

When he started to edit Mad Max he noticed “something was too slow” and to achieve the look he desired, began removing frames from the sequence.

“It looks a little bit like the old silent movies and sped up. By the time I got to Mad Max two, we would shoot at 20 frames or 18 frames. And so, I started to do a lot of that.”

Reflecting on Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, he says: “Nowadays digitally I shoot most things at 48 frames because you can ramp it up and down from 48 frames, provided you’ve got the resolution, you can do so much more with that.”

The film Mad Max was released in 1979 and put Mel Gibson on the road to stardom.

Oddly, at that time the film distributor in the US, American International Pictures, opted to dub the strong Australian accents used by the actors for fears that they would not be understood by American audiences.

A far cry from misunderstanding the Australian accent, the country’s actors have become some of the most well-known faces in Hollywood nowadays.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Miller’s latest release, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga serves as a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road.

It was written before the Tom Hardy film began in production in order to “fully understand” the characters on screen.

It stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Imperator Furiosa and Chris Hemsworth as Dementus.

Miller says it feels good for the prequel to finally be in cinemas.

“We had a magnificent cast and crew who gave their very best. We tried to get the best story we could have on the screen using all the tools we have and hopefully it means something significant to people.”

Miller on the future of film

The Australian director decided against using de-ageing technology for the role of Furiosa and instead cast Anya Taylor-Joy to play the character first depicted by Charlize Theron.

It is not that he is against using AI technology in fact, Taylor-Joy recently revealed they used software to mix her face with that of the child actor, Alyla Browne, for her scenes.

Miller says the beauty of cinema is that it constantly changes.

“From the very beginning of cinema, which is 130 years old, there’s always change. The silent era and sound. Then there was Technicolor, then there was the digital dispensation in the early 90s. Once that’s come along, things have changed so rapidly even since then.”

Always attracted to the tech behind the scenes, Miller cites the digital ability to make Sheep-Pig talk in Babe or Mumble tap dance in Happy Feet as game-changing moments for him.

“By the time we got to do Fury Road, I realiSed, ‘Oh my God, we could do things that we never dreamed of doing back in the celluloid days’.

“Technology will keep changing and advancing… I don’t think we should limit ourselves if the tools are available. It’s always been the case, and cinema has to adjust.”

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is in cinemas now

Entertainment

Nicki Minaj arrested at Netherlands airport hours before Co-op Live show in Manchester

Published

17 hours ago

May 25, 2024

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Nicki Minaj's show at Co-op Live in Manchester postponed after star's arrest in Netherlands

Music star Nicki Minaj has been arrested at an airport in the Netherlands hours before she was due to perform at Co-op Live in Manchester.

The American rapper was detained at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on suspicion of possession of soft drugs.

Minaj posted a series of messages on the social media site X – including one message in which she wrote “they said they found weed”.

She also claimed “they took my luggage without consent” and “they’re trying to keep me from MANCHESTER”.

The messages also included one where she wrote: “This is Amsterdam btw, where weed is legal.”

The star also filmed what appeared to be an airport official asking her to have her luggage checked.

Minaj later wrote: “It’s a 45 minute to an hour flight. So they’re probably trying to stall for about 4 hours.”

And she added: “Now they said I have to go 5 mins away to make a statement about my security to the police precinct.”

She has not posted on X since.

Asked about Minaj, Robert van Kapel, a spokesman for the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, told Sky News’ partner network NBC News: “We can confirm that we have arrested a 41-year-old American woman at Schiphol Airport because of possession of soft drugs.”

It is unclear if Minaj’s show at Co-op Live has been affected.

A post on the venue’s X account said shortly after 5.15pm: “Please note that general admission and premium doors for tonight’s Nicki Minaj show will now open at 19:00.”

The beleaguered Co-op Live arena in Manchester – the UK’s largest indoor entertainment venue – finally opened earlier this month after it was plagued by a series of problems.

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