Film-maker turns focus to city’s knife crime rise
A LEICESTER film-maker has highlighted the issue of knife crime rates in the city in the hope his work will help in some way to reduce the scale of the problem.
Pardeep Sheera, 31, owner of West Knighton Films, and a team of filmmakers and actors from the city have created KnifePoint to raise awareness of the issue, which they fear is getting worse year after year.
The short film features a young man who has just finished work and is planning to meet up with his fiancé for dinner. There are two alternative endings - one in which he is attacked and fatally stabbed before he can get there and the other in which he reaches the restaurant unscathed.
Pardeep said: “At the time I wrote the film, I noticed that knife crime reports in the media were getting more and more common. I was seeing loads of incidents in Leicester, which was somewhat of a new phenomenon.
“Even during the filming of KnifePoint, there were two stabbings in the city centre. It just shows how bad things were getting.”
Pardeep said that by creating a film, he wanted to get people talking about the issue and ultimately spark a change in the city. West Knighton Films was in talks with Leicestershire Police beforehand, who offered their support of the film.
While the film is not based on an actual story, Pardeep used elements of his own life.
He said: “The part where the main character meets up with his fiancé is real because I’m getting married soon, and I put myself in the situation of someone who’s been a victim of it. It was also intentional to show how knife crime affects not just the victim, but their loved ones too. A lot
RAISING AWARENESS OF ISSUE
of the focus is usually on the victim, but there are so many people involved, such as their partners, their families and friends - who are all victims too.”
London charity Fighting Knife Crime London are one of the first organisations to share the film publicly. Pardeep says that he hopes that
through education and communication, the issue will begin to change.
He said: “We are hoping to get involved with schools and colleges and continue to work with the police, so that numbers can ultimately decline.”
KnifePoint can be viewed on YouTube.