Young film talent tipped as ‘the next Spielberg’

AUNIVERSITY of Exeter student is already making a big impact in the film industry as the UK’s youngest feature film director, with an acclaimed film critic labelling him as “the next Steven Spielberg”.

Elliott Hasler was just 16 when he released his first feature film, which he completed over three years while studying for his GCSEs.

As he heads into his second year of his history degree at the University of Exeter, the 19-year-old is working on his second feature film Vindication Swim, which tells the true story of Mercedes Gleitze, the first woman to swim the Channel.

Elliott’s first feature film, Charlie’s Letters, about his own great grandad, Charlie Standing, who was a prisoner of war in Italy during the Second World War, was shot over five countries. It premiered in Brighton, Elliott’s hometown, in May 2017 as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival. The film also screened at the Edinburgh festival and was shown on the Brighton Big Screen, with film critic Graham Fuller describing Elliott as “the next Steven Spielberg.”

Earlier this year, Elliott had the chance to work with a star-studded cast on his short film set in the British Raj, To Hunt a Tiger.

The film, which premiered at the luxury Soneva Jani resort at Cinema Paradiso, the Maldives’ first overwater cinema, is about a troubled English hunter who travels to West Bengal with the intention of hunting an elusive and magnificent tiger. It stars Darkest Hour actor John Locke and Charlotte Peters (Pound of Flesh, Interlude in Prague) and features an original score from Emmy winner Daniel Clive McCallum.

Elliott said: “I love making films because it’s total escapism. It allows you to delve into these worlds that otherwise you could only dream of, from journeying across war-torn Italy, to hunting tigers at the turn of the century and now swimming across the English Channel.”

Find out more about Elliott’s work at relsahproductions.co.uk

> University of Exeter filmmaker Elliott Hasler