Mum’s film is festival star
A MUM who wrote, produced and directed her own film has walked away with one of the top prizes at the London Independent Film Festival.
Hannah Pike shot Hit & Run, which stars Manchester actors Jack Deam and Katie West, in Stockport and New Mills last year – and it took the Best Short Film gong at the festival.
Hannah, from Stockport, who is mum to one-year-old Betty, said: “A year ago I dared myself to take the leap and try to make this film. I’m so chuffed I did. Getting the award feels brilliant. The team, who are all local, totally deserve this after working so hard and for free.”
The film is a dark comedy about a suicidal alcoholic who hires a straighttalking prostitute for one last night of passion before he takes his own life.
Hit & Run was selected from hundreds of entries to be screened at the festival, and was among 60 entries vying for the top spot in the short film category. It also beat thousands of entries to be screened at the Vail Film Festival, in Colorado in the United States, earlier this month.
Hannah, a former pupil at Marple High School, studied for an MA in scriptwriting at Salford University and won a BBC future talent award. She originally wrote Hit & Run as a fulllength feature and decided to make it as a short in the hope of attracting interest from the film industry.
She said: “I hoped Stockport would get behind me with the funding, and four local companies and a load of mates chipped in so we could do it.
“Stockport council and 3Sixty Media at Media City were really generous too.”
For more see hitandrunfilm.com.