Category: Film Projects

We are very excited to announce the release of Erik Knudsen’s feature film, The Raven On The Jetty. The film is now available:

   

Other outlets, including Amazon Prime, are being added soon. The Raven On The Jetty will be available in all English speaking territories. There will also be a limited number of theatrical screenings which will be announced shortly. We have developed a unique hand signed and numbered Limited Edition Production Scrapbook and DVD available shortly. The book is the story of the film, scene by scene, told using bits of Erik Knudsen’s storyboard, notes, production stills and stills from the film. Also included is the complete final screenplay and the DVD of the film.

The Raven On The Jetty first started as a concept and idea back in the spring of 2012. Writer and Director, Erik Knudsen, was running a workshop at the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television in Cuba when he first started to take notes of the ideas and imagery emerging. Soon after returning to the UK, he involved his Assistant Director, Mark Duggan, and co-producer and wife, Janet Knudsen, and soon the ball was rolling. The development of the screenplay, casting and location scouting proved the most important elements early on and the production was very fortunate to encounter a range of very helpful people in Cumbria and the Lake District of England. Casting, too, took place in the Lake District where the vast majority of the film was to be set. After a public call for interested people, the team were able to shortlist and audition 19 boys and parents for the key roles. Erik Knudsen was keen to work with non professionals from the very area the film was set and the range of talents available proved considerable. Connor O’Hara stood out and proved to be perfect for the main part. Following the decision to cast Connor, the team were able to cast Connor O’Hara’s father, Rob O’Hara, to play the lead character’s father. Helen Teasdale was cast as his mother, followed by the casting of Anne Fraser and Anne Lees.

Shooting took place during the Easter holidays in 2013. The whole cast and crew lived in a couple of cottages near the primary locations, allowing for a communal feel to the production process and enabling an efficient way of organising the shoot. It meant that the principal photography only took 2 weeks, in part because the production was blessed with uncharacteristically good weather. Most of the shooting took place near Penrith and around Ullswater in the English Lake District.

The postproduction process took place during the remainder of 2013 and during 2014 the film went to a series of international festivals. These included the Keswick Film Festival, where we were very pleased to be able to premiere the film in the very area where it was shot and in which many of the cast lived. The film went on to a range of other festivals including the Legon Film Event, Ghana, Lucern International Film Festival, Switzerland, Wales International Film Festival, Aberdeen International Film Festival and the Madrid International Film Festival, where the film won the Jury Award.

Uniquely, during the making of The Raven On The Jetty, 30 short documentaries were made about the production process, from early development through to the first cast and crew screening. These Video Blogs are all available to view.

The Raven On The Jetty defies categorisation and sits outside any particular national cinema, or any particular genre. The Raven On The Jetty sits on the crest of a wave Erik Knudsen calls ‘cinema of poverty’, a cinema of thought provoking, independent quality films that defy the normal routines of the established film industry in the UK and that aspire to a cinematic aesthetic that seeks independence and simplicity in an age of abundance and complexity. We hope you enjoy the film.